"WHAT .A.RE THE GREEKS ?

20th November 1854.

Slit—In the department of " Notes and Queriee " in your last paper, you start the question, What are the Greeks ?" and suggest that " the Bush- mans or the Negroes would probably feel insulted, just now, if they were called Greeks," and that " the so-called Greeks' are " perhaps more Jews than Greeks, and yet comparatively little of Jevre—mongrels with so little of the characteristics of any type as to be incapable of understanding national feeling."

Now as, even in these-times, I still venture to see nothing to be ashamed of iu the name either of Hellen or of Philliellen, perhaps you will allow rue a little space to stand up in the cause-of those who possibly have no other defender left.

We are at war with Russia : I have said more than once, that, though I cannot share the popular enthusiasm about this war, though I would not dogmatically call it necessary, yet I am as convinced as any man that the war is, on ordinary political and international principles, thoroughly justifi- able. Like Mr. Bright's correspondent, I have read Vattel for the express purpose ; and, on Yattel's principles, there can be no doubt of the matter. Yet I must confess that my own feeling runs very strongly against any but purely defensive war. I am really beginning to doubt whether such scenes of her- ror abroad and of bereavement at home ought to be inflicted for any purely political or commercial considerations; whether we have a right to shed either native or foreign blood in any cause but that of our own national existence. If my lot had been cast in any land engaged in such a struggle, I believe I could have willingly perilled my life at Marathon, at Hastings, at Morgarten, or at Idstedt ; I am not sure that I could do so for the long- headed political consideration that Nicholas may possibly take Constantinople, and that his taking Constantinople may possibly harm English interests. But this is my own private difficulty, in which I have no right to quarrel with any one for not sharing. On the principles on which European nations have i acted for some centuries, the war s undoubtedly jug; and, once undertaken, it must be pressed with vigour. These considerations amply defend our Min- istry from Mr. Bright's aspersions : they have not plunged us into a war; they used every possible means to avoid it, and I most deeply honour them for so doing. But technical principles rendered war technically just ; popular feeling rendered war practically unavoidable ; and at war we are.

For a century and a half Russia has been advancing on a career of aggreel sion, which Western Europe has at last determined to stop. It would have been far better to have stopped it years ago on behalf of gallant Poland, or of our own Swedish brethren. That we have now to do it on behalf of dis- reputable allies, is the appropriate punishment of having omitted to do it on behalf of honourable ones. We allowed an independent state to be blotted from the map of Europe without the shadow of a justification • we allowed a kindred people to be shorn of a valuable province, and threatened by a hostile garrison almost within sight of their capital. Our just penalty is to make the stand now in a cause where Russia has a great prima fame advantage, where she can plausibly represent herself as the champion of civilization and religion. Instead of the countrymen of Gustavus or So- bieski, we have to fight on behalf of the infidel oppressor of our fellow Christians, in company with a set of dastardly barbarians, who mill not strike a blow in their own defence, but seize the opportunity to plunder the gallant men who step forward to strike it for them.

We fight in the cause, a sufficient one indeed, of the independence of go- vernments ; but we really must not persuade ourselves that we are fighting in the cause of the independence of nations. Here Mr. Bright bits the right nail on the heed; and I only regret that the sound sense, vigorous language, and noble feeling of the latter part of his letter, should have been coupled with the calumnies or delusions which preceded it. It is absurd to talk about fighting against despotism when we fight for the Sultan, hand in band with one of whom the language of your leading articles once was that his deeds belonged "not to political but to criminal history";' and the tone of your privileged correspondents was,

• Let loose thy hell-hounds, man of blood." Nicholas is a despot, and therefore, in my eyes, as a thorough hater of des- pots, he is an enemy ; but why he is to be considered a worse despot than .Napoleon or Francis Joseph, is a distinction quite too subtile for me. We cannot be said to fight for the independence of nations while we fight for the oppressor of the Greek and the Bulgarian, while we crave the alliance of the tyrant of Hungary and Italy.. We cannot in decency talk of the restoration Of Poland while we attack indeed one of the three robber-powers which divided it, but seek in so doing for the support of the two partners of his guilt. It is the strange inferences people make from our state of war with Russia which utterly puzzle me, and sometimes make me doubt whether we are en- gaged in a right path. Possibly, as one of your correspondents said, I may know more of ancient than of modern history ; but I supposeI am right Mee- Fording events of 1851 as belonging to the latter. I remember the storm of just indignation which overwhelmed the Imperial criminal of the coup d'etat, and I marvel that men are now prepared to go so comfortably hand in glove with him. I remember when men rejoioed at the impending fall of that old Aus- trian tyranny, which for six centuries has shown itself the most implacable foe of justice and freedom. I remember when men mourned at its rescue by the Mid of the sister tyranny of Muscovy. Now, it seems, we may sympa- thize with the Fin or the Tartar, but not with the Greek or the Lombard ; we must be excited by the wrongs of the Pole of Warsaw, but must shut our eyes to those of his brother of Cracow or LeopoL

But I am wandering from my immediate subject, or rather returning to it by a too circuitous path. The strangest to me of all these strange inferences is that we ought to hate the Greeks. I ask of you, in all humility, what the Greeks have done that a Bushman or a Negro should feel insulted at being called a Greek ? While so doing, I will endeavour to answer your question, What are the Greeks ?

I am often amused at the opposite ways in which philobarbaric writers attack these unfortunate victims. Sometimes they tell us that they have no time to listen to our ethnological lectures—that they cannot stay to inquire whether a man is a Greek or a Turk : if he is a " subject " of the Sultan, that is enough, and he must submit to his lawful lord and master. Sometimes they turn about, and give us an ethnological lecture to prove that our sympathy with the Greek is all vain, because he is no pure descendant of the ancient lichen. Now, my principle is to sympathize with any nation labouring • Spectator 1851, p.118A.

under foreign oppression ; if the ground of oppression be a faithful adherence to the Christian religion, my sympathy is still deeper : but whether that nation is or is not descended from men who did great acts two thousand years back, may somewhat heighten the generous sentiment but cannot touch the real matter at issue. And in very truth, the modem Greek may be content to surrender Marathon and Thermopylaa, when he has his own Drageshan and Mesolonglii to fall back upon.

The modern Greek is not a pure descendant of the ancient Hellen ; his nationality is mixed up of all those various elements which Greek coloniza- tion, Macedonian conquest, Roman dominion, and Slovenian immigration, have in different ages brought within the reach of Greek influence. And the Greek of Attica and Peloponnesus is much less pure than the Greek of many other countries, of many which have not exchanged the Ottoman for the Bavarian yoke. A large portion of the Greek kingdom is inhabited by Albanians,- a large portion of its Greek-speaking population is of Slovenian descent. It is in the islands, whether subject to Otho, to Abdul-Medjid, or to Sir Henry Ward, that the nearest approach to the uncontaminated Hel- len is to be looked for.

But this, after all, is mere ethnological purism, very interesting as ethno- logy, but nothing more. The Greek is a mongrel, just as the Englishman is. No one can run over the list of his acquaintance without finding many whose ancestors must have been as alien to the pure English stock as any Albanian or Servian can be to the old Dorian or Ionian. Must I cut my friend Mr. Powell from Llanfihangel, or my other friend Mr. M`Donald from the He- brides, because they are no "Anglo-Saxons," but palpable Cymry and Gael ? Must I treat Mr. Knott of Haconby to a repetition of the massacre of St. Brice ? or pay off on Lord Mowbray Plantagenet Fitzurse the old grudge of the field of Senlac ? Must I make a clearance of all Englishmen whose names include the obnoxious prefixes of " Van " or " De" ? Must I dis- claim for my country the philanthropy of Romilly or the science of Her- schel? Must we exclude a Rothschild from our Senates and a Disraeli from our Cabinets, because possibly their "profiles" may be less Anglian than Caucasian ? Either you must allow that the English are so mongrel a race as to be incapable of comprehending national feeling, or you cannot deny the nationality of the modern Greek because his forefathers may have fought on the victorious side at Clueroneia, or even have entered Greece in company with Belisarius the Slave, or in the wake of Samuel the Bulgarian. Either you must retrace your steps, and join in the cry of bigots and obstructionists against our own Hebrew fellow countrymen or else you cannot make it any objection to a man that he is more of a Jew than a Greek, and yet compara- tively little of a Jew. The Greek, in the modern sense, is one who speaks the Greek language and adheres to the Greek church. Community or language and religion has formed an artificial nation out of very discordant elements, yet hardly more discordant than those which constitute the nationality of most of the na- tions of Europe. The Hellenic element, probably the greatest in amount, certainly the strongest in influence, has given its character and name to the whole thus produced. And surely no people are better capable of under- standing national feeling than those who have made the most gallant strug- gle of modern times on behalf of their national existence. Scattered as they are over a vast extent of country, the bond, possibly of blood, certainly of religion and language, still ties together the Greek of Cephallenia, of Athens, of Trapezus, of the 'nude Chersonesus, as members of one nation, however arbitrary political arrangements may apportion them among different go- vernments.

The Greeks are a nation, and have the claims on our sympathy which be- long to any nation struggling to maintain its existence, and the especial claims which belong to one which has suffered a long martyrdom on behalf of the Christian faith. Apostacy could always insure a translation from the ranks of the oppressed to those of the oppressors, but an overwhelming; ma- jority of the nation has constantly remained true to its faith. It is in Crete alone that such a strange mongrel as the Hellenic Mussulman can be found forming even a minority of any consequence. In all this they demand the same amount of sympathy, and no more, as the other Christian races under Ottoman bondage. Their descent from the first of civilized nations, from the old enlighteners of the world, may indeed add to the amount of their claims, but can never form their original groundwork. In fact, I fear that this proud dement has been little more than a stumblingblock, and these illus- trious ancestors little more than a burden. It has led to a vast deal of affec- tation and unreality. The modern Greek has endeavoured to close his eyes to the last two thousand years of his history, and to identify himself too ex- clusively with the brightest days of his national existence. It has led to the pedantic folly of attempting to speak and write old Hellenic instead of mo- dern Romaic ; as if Dante had written the Divina Commedia in Latin. It has led to a barbarous recklessness towards the later antiquities of the country the restorers of Athens may reverence the Parthenon, but they pull down the churches of Irene without mercy. It has led to a vast deal of national pretension and absurdity, which has done much to prejudice a really noble and righteous cause. It has even led to forgetfulness of many a glorious page of national history. The readers of Mr. Finlay will allow that a "Greek of the Lower Empire" could do something ; that if cut off from fellowship with Itiltiades and Leonidas, there is at least something to fall back upon in the triumphant career of the Leos and the Constantines, of Nicephorus and Zimisees, and Basil the Slayer of the Bulgarians. Indeed, the very name of Hellen seems but a recent and artificial revival. It was a Roman Emperor who perished for his faith and countrybefore the onslaught of the infidel ; the Mabo- metan laureate of Ali Pasha commemorates his razzias upon the Romans ; and I presume that the avay eviniflerr es "EXAneee do not refuse to dance the Ro- maika, or, colloquially at least, to speak the Romaic language. It is then, not from any ultra-classical enthusiasm, but from a general love of freedom and Christianity, that I still venture to call myself a Philhellen' as well as a Philo-Slave and a Philo-Lomoard. The Sehwitzer of the fourteenth cen- tury and the Servian of the nineteenth won their freedom all the better for not being burdened with ancestors whose fame had spread through all the world ; and, if the Greek cannot get rid of his, he will do better to imitate than to talk of them.

It is hard to say that the Greek cannot understand national feeling, be- cause his national feeling happens to be opposite to ours. I have more than once stated in your pages that if the Greeks saw their own real interests, they would sympathize with England rather than with Russia ; I believe that many of them do so ; but you cannot expect it of the mass of the people. Russia presents the prima facie aspect of their champion ; England, the champion of their oppressor, presents the prima facie aspect of their enemy. I still believe that to be transferred from Ottoman to Russian domination wOuld be in point of fact a loss rather than a gain ; but I hold also that Eng- land was greatly wanting to her duty in not requiring, as the condition of her succours to the Porte, a real and immediate establishment of religious equality throughout the Turkish dominions. Then we should have shown that we were not'fighting for the domination of an oppressive minority, but for the real "integrity and independence" of South-eastern Europe, whether by the name of Turkey or of Romania is of little consequence.

I am no bigot or crusader : I would not meddle with a nation, of what- ever treed, merely because it holds that creed. I have no quarrel with a purely Mahometan power, like Persia, but only with a Mahometan power which keeps the mass of its subjects in a state of bondage because they ad- here to Christianity. I have no wish to subject the Mussulman to the Chris- tian, but only to give both fair play under an impartial government of their common country. Whether any Mahometan prince will ever do this, is another question. The greatest man Islam ever produced, the illustrious Akber, did establish real religious equality, and found it the strength of his empire ; but he only did so by forsaking the persecuting creed in which he was brought up. Nor would I even interfere thus much, except with a power which has given us the right to do so. The Ottoman power exists only be- cause we find its existence convenient, we have a right to determine on what conditions we will bestow our eleemosynary support. We have no right to make an abolitionist crusade against America ; but a Negro prince, solicited for aid by the United States, would be wanting to his duty if he failed to exact abolition as the price of his support.

As we have not done this, we cannot wonder that Greek sympathies are against us ; but I need hardly say that I disapprove as much as any man of that offensive and indecent demonstration of them which I should hope was confined to a very few. I should equally disapprove of any similar demon- strations on the part of English sympathizers in Russia. The Greek of Be- laklava may fairly do his best against those who invade his Crimean village in the company of his old oppressors ; the Greek of Manchester should at least show a decent respect to the Government and nation which protects him.

Is it after all too late ? We have seen what Turks are worth. I had thought that the descendants of the men who won Nieopolis and Varna were at least possessed of brute courage : our last accounts represent them as fly- ing from their enemies and robbing their friends—as driven in herds before an English midshipman, and cowering before the reprimand of an Amazon of the sister island. The Greek or the Bulgarian could not serve our pur- pose worse. Why not demand of the Sultan, if he wants our alliance, to emancipate and arm those portions of his subjects, and not insult us with the support of dastardly wretches, on whom I will not waste the epithets of bar- barian and infidel, which seem to imply something of antagonism on equal terms?

Still, then, even if left alone, I maintain, the old Hellenic cause, which thirty years back men deemed to be that of justice and liberty, which I deem to be so still. I know that the miserable failure of the mock-emancipation given to a small portion of the Greek nation will be quoted against me on every side. The objection is a great deal too plausible, indeed something more than plausible, not to be kept bard at work. I will, with your per- mission, endeavour to dispose of it on some other occasion.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant, E. A. F.

[In criticizing the "Turks," is not our able and eloquent correspondent illustrating the same laxity that he justly reproves in us ? In speaking of " Greeks," however, we were avowedly using that word in its wrong and slang acceptation, as signifying the mongrel race that fringes the seabord of Turkey—a race only not Turkish, Arabic, or Hebraic; so little impregnated by the original Hellenic stirps, or so adulterated by vices and unnatural al- liances of the Levant, as to have lost distinctive nationality, pride, virtue, or even genius.]