preferring the music of Pan to that of Apollo,
had his head " adorned with a comely paire of
asses' ears." This same "adornment" is
still better hit off by Bacon in his Wisdom
of the Ancients, where he says (or at least is
made to say by his English translator, for
the original is in Latin) that that " wise
judge," Midas, "had a pair of asses' ears
privily chopt to his noddle for his sentence."
Concerning the town called Pesinus, we are
informed that the Goddess Cibele was here
worshipped; and that, the Romans, being
told by an oracle that they would become the
masters of the whole world, if they could
obtain the exclusive possession of that deity,
they sent to the Phrygians to demand it.
"The Phrygians, willing to please a potent
neighbour, especially the Romans, being their
countrymen, as descended from Æneas and
his Trojans, granted their request, and the
goddesse is shipt for Rome. But behold the
unluckinesse of fortune! The ship, goddesse
and all, made a stand in Tiber; neither could
it be againe moved forward by force or slight.
It hapned that one Claudia, a vestall virgin,
being suspected [of breaking her vows], tied
her girdle unto it; praying the goddesse that,
if shee were causelessly suspected, shee would
suffer the ship to goe forward; which was
no sooner said than granted: Claudia by her
girdle drawing the ship up the streame to
Rome, where I leave the people wondring at
the miracle, as they well might." The Roman
trade in miracles has passed into different hands
since those days; but, according to the dates
of the last despatches, it was still as flourishing
as ever.

Presently we float over the delicious city
and region of Damascus, the very name of
which is a romance, stately with visions of
Greek Emperors and Arabian Caliphs, the
Mamelukes of Egypt, and the Sultans of
Turkey. " Damascus," says Heylyn, " is so
pleasantly situate that the impostor Mahomet
would never enter into it; fearing
(as himselfe used to say) lest, being
ravished with the ineffable pleasures of the
place, he should forget the businesse about
which he was sent, and make this towne his
Paradise. For it is seated in a very fruitful
soyle, bearing grapes all the yeare, and girt
round about with most curious and
odoriferous gardens."

Heylyn has much to say about Armenia—
the cradle, as most inquirers suppose, of the
human race. This country—or at least, the
chief division of it, called Turcomania—
appears to have been the first place of settlement
of the Turks, after they had passed out
of their aboriginal home among the wilds of
Scythia. It may therefore be regarded as
Turkey Proper; and in connexion with this
province Heylyn tells us all that he has to
tell about the Ottomans. Events now passing
beneath our eyes have attached more than
usual interest to the history of Turkey; and
we may in consequence be allowed to tarry
longer than we might otherwise have done in
the land at which we have just arrived.

Heylyn's account of the people in many
respects singularly coincides with charges which
we have recently heard brought against the
Turks of the present day. He represents
them as enervated with ease and luxury, idle,
servile, and depressed by the cruel tyranny of
their local governors, "Walking up and downe
they never use, and much wonder at the often
walking of Christians. Biddulph relateth
that, being at his ambulatory exercise with
his companions, a Turke demanded them
whether they were out of their way or their
wits. ' If your way,' quoth the Turke, ' lay
toward the upper end of the cloister, why
come you downwards? If to the nether end,
why goe you backe againe?' Shooting is their
chiefe recreation, which they also follow with
much lazinesse, sitting on carpets in the
shadow, and sending some of their slaves for
their arrows." Referring to the despotic rule,
both of the Sultans themselves, and of their
Pashas and Bassas, Heylyn says, that the
ordinary revenue of the empire is but small;
"the chief reason whereof is the tyrannicall
government of the Turke, which dehorteth
men from tillage, merchandise, and other
improvements of their estates, as knowing all
their gettings to lye in the Grand Signieur's
mercy. His extraordinary revenue is
incredible; for no man is master of his own
wealth farther than stands with the
Emperour's liking. So that his great Bassas are
but as spunges to suck up riches till their
coffers swell, and then to be squeezed into his
treasury. Such riches as they gaine, if they
hap to die naturally, returne to the
Emperour's coffers, who giveth only what hee
pleaseth to the children of the deceased." It
is curious to see Heylyn, who in his own
country was the staunch supporter of as
dishonest and grinding a despotism, especially
in the way of taxation, as that which he
denounces, becoming the advocate of the
cause of the people as against their masters,
when another country and religion have to
bear the brunt. But it was not until long
after his time that Englishmen discovered
that their own country possessed faults as
well as virtues, and that foreign countries had
virtues as well as faults. Not that Peter
invariably forgot this rule; but he did so too often,
and especially, it must be added, where a
different faith was concerned. No doubt,
however, his charge of tyranny against the
Turkish Sultans and Pashas was no more
than they deserved; for the same state of
things existed until recently, when the reforms
of the late and of the present monarch have
in a great degree swept away the rubbish of
past ages, and opened a new future to the
Ottoman race.

Prophets were not wanting in Heylyn's
time, any more than in our own, to proclaim
loudly and confidently that the Turkish
empire was staggering, and on the eve of