QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE GREEK PRIESTHOOD.—I was one day speak- ing
to a Greek gentleman respecting the deficiency of their education. T6 show you," said he, " the eatimatiutt in which they are held, I will
relate to you a story current among the people. There was a merry fellow once, who, wishing to expose the ignorance of the priests, led an
ass up to the Bishop, and respectfully begged that he would confer ordi- nation upon him.'—' Out upon, you!' said the Bishop in a rage, how dare you insult the mysteries Of our holy religion by such a proposition? —away with you l' The man turned round, and was leading the beast away, when the bishop perceived a purse full of gold hanging to his tail. Stop, friend,' he cried out, I was wrong; bring your animal back; for, although only an ass in front, I see that he will make an excellent priest behind' "—Trant's Greece.
LET WELL ALONE.—Notwithstanding the distinguished part that Mav- romichalis took in the revolutionary contest, he is strongly suspected of looking back with regret to the good old times when he was Bey of Mains, and possessed of sovereign authority. His official functions are now merely those of a senator, and, instead of having any weight in the government, he is considered as a cipher. His own words will best de- scribe his sentiments. A friend of his paid him a visit one day at a new house he had constructed, and remarked to Mavromichalis, that he thought it extremely comfortable. "Yes," answered the chief, " but you should have seen me in my Beyship of Maina."—" How !" said his friend, " do you regret former times ? What then induced you to rise against the Porte?"—" Why, the fact is, that although I was already powerful and rich, I wished to become more so ; a crowd of agents sur- rounded me, and promised that I should he made Prince of Greece ; so I threw myself headlong into the Revolution. What has been the result? My son was killed. I was used as a tool until my services were no longer required ; and now I am a mere man of dirt."—Trant's Greece.
VALUE OF A GREEK ADIULET.—A peasant armed with a musket met us on the road, and, after the usual salutation, called us aside with a great air of mystery, and first looking cautiously around to see that our mule- teers were not observing him, he drew from his vest a small packet care- fully tied up. This we hoped might contain some ancient coins ; and we anxiously awaited until he had unfolded several coverings, and at last produced a little bit of shrivelled wood with two glass beads in it, so that it seemed like a monkey's face. " Look !" said the man. We looked, but could not comprehend what he meant us to do. " I gave," said he, " one hundred dollars for this, to a doctor in Anatolico ; and I would not part with it for any sum that you could offer." We again examined this vain. able relic, but could not discover its virtues ; and at last he told us, that whether it came from God or the Devil be could not say, but that it was an infallible charm against wounds of every kind I We left the fool glo- rying in his purchase, and proceeded up the mountain through wild scenery, interspersedwith masses of rocks and oak forests, and, having passed a village called Ampelione, halted at Skleru.—Trant's Greecit., [The Greek thought the Captain a much greater fool for toiling and starving up a bare mountain in a freezing atmosphere to see a few old stones put together, which the said Captain called the ruins of the Temple of Apollo, and looked upon with admiration, sketched onpaper, and then paid money at home to a man ina garret to engrave them.] Tan SUPERIORITY OF NATURE.—I once asked an Albanian woman why she did' not use a fork in eating. She 11E+1 up her hands in answer, and said, "You have only one fork ; I have ten r—Trant's Greece. 'BAtlaixG,-Toe Correspondence of Pbakestaa, just published, contains the following odd and dry, but sensible. and indeed admirable letter, from Mr. gOutts-the banker.
"Strand, January 31st, DM.
" I have received the favour of your letter, asking me to withdraw, the claim for interest on the sum I lent on the security of a house ; but the tooting upon which you have put the request is one t have uniformly stall times thought to be such as I ought to reject, and have rejected accordingly. The bankers in Scotland, and the country banks in England, are on a different plan from those of London. They circulate their own notes, and make payments in them : we give out no notes of our own, and, if we were to give interest at even one per cent. per annum, we .should be losers by our business.
" We do not consider ourselves as being obliged to any one person who places money in our hands, however considerable : it is to the aggregate and general mass of society that we owe our situation, and to the credit our prudence and attention have obtained for us ; and people deposit their money in our hands for their own advantage and conveniency, not from favour to us, nor do we desire to have it on any other terms.
" Probably you may not understand the explanation I have spent time in making, which I can very ill spare, and it may therefore answer no purpose ; but it satisfies myself; and I wish to show equal attention to all my employers, whether they have large or small sums in my hands, which indeed hardly ever occupies my attention.
" My attention is fully engrossed in doing business with honour and regularity, leaving the rest to the common chance and course of things. It surprises me that, though it every day appears that there is very little truth published in the newspapers, yet people will still believe what they read, especially abuse, or what they think is against the character or pru- dence of the person treated of. I saw some paragraphs and heard of more of what I had done for Mr. Kean, in all which there was not a word of truth ; though I see no reason why I might not, without offence to any one, have given Mr. Kean any thing I pleased. In doing any little matter in my power for any individual, I must add I never had any view to celebrity with the present age or with posterity.
" If I bh ould know of any gentleman wanting a travelling companion abroad, I shall mention you to him: but it seldom happens that I am ap plied to in such matters. '
PRINTING.—Printing that secures existence (in libraries) to indifferent authors of any bulk, is like those cases of Egyptian mummies which in catacombs preserve bodies of one knows not whom, and which are scrib- bled over with characters that nobody attempts to read, till nobody un- derstands the language in which they were written.—Walpole, in Pinker- ton's Correspondence.
MAxIM.—When youth made me sanguine, I hoped mankind might be set right. Now that I am very old, I sit down with this lazy maxim, that, unless one could cure men of being fools, it is to no purpose to cure them of any folly, as it is only making room for some other.—Wal- pole, in Pinkerton's Correspondence.
CHARACTER OF A TRI/E FRENCH OFFICER.—Colonel Pleineselve was se- verely wounded, and died after having undergone amputation of the thigh. This officer had served with distinction under Buonaparte in Hol- land, Spain, and the granule armee of Germany, in the Imperial Guards. and as aide-de-camp of General Desmoutier. He it was who, with his own hand, took Count Merveldt prisoner at the battle of Leipsic. He was one of the best colonels, and one of the most respectable men in the army. Even after his wound, while carried on a litter, he continued to command his battalion ; and, notwithstanding his sufferings, his coolness and spirit of discipline never for a moment abandoned him. The march from the Marchd des Innocens to the Tuileries lasted between_ seven and eight hours ! He insisted on being the last man whose wound should be looked at, and in fact it was not dressed till one o'clock at night by the Surgeon. General Larrey, in the Hospital of Gros Caillou, whither his soldiers had carefully carried him.—Military Events of the French Revolution of 1830.
THIEVERY IN ARABIA.—A GOOD SToRx.—While some of the Mamelukes were encamped about Minieh, a thief set his mind upon carrying off the horse and wearing apparel of one of their Beys ; and with this intention contrived, in the dead. of the night, to creep, unperceived, within the tent, where, as it was winter-time, embers were burning, and showed the rich clothes of the Bey lying close at hand. The thief, as he squatted down by the fire, drew them softly to him, and put them all on ; and then, after filling a pipe and lighting it, went deliberately to the tent- door, and tapping a groom, who was sleeping near, with the pipe end, made a sign to him for the horse, which stood piquetted in front. It was brought—he mounted, and rode off. On the morrow, when the clothes of the Bey could nowhere be found, none could form a conjecture as to what had become of them, until the groom, on being questioned, main. tained to his fellow-servants that their master was not yet returned from his ride, and told them how he had suddenly called for his horse in the night,—which at last seemed to give some clue to what had really happened. Upon this, the Bey, anxious to recover his horse, as well as curious to ascertain the particulars, ordered it to be published abroad, that if the person who had robbed him would, within two days, bring back what he had taken, he should not only he freely pardoned, but should receive also the full value of the animal and of the suit of clothes. Relying on the good faith of this promise, and possibly, too, not a little vain of his exploit, the Arab presented himself, and brought his booty ; arid the Bey also, on his part, punctually kept his word ; but since, besides the loss, there was something in the transaction that placed the Bey in rather a ludicrous light, it went hard with him to let the rogue depart so freely, and he seemed to be considering what he should do; so that, to gain time, he was continually, asking over and over again fresh and more circumstantial accounts of the manner in which the stratagem had been conducted. The other was too crafty not to perceive that no good might be preparing for him, and began to feel anxious to get safe out of the scrape; he showed no impatience, however, but entered minutely into every detail, accompanying the whole with a great deal of corresponding action ; at one time sitting down by the fire, and making believe as though he were slyly drawing on the different articles of dress, so as to throw the Bey himself and all who saw and heard him into fits of laughter. When he came at last to what concerned the horse, " It was," he said, " brought to me, and I leaped upon his back ;" and so in effect flinging 'himself again into the saddle, and spurring the flanks sharply with the -stirrupirons, he rode off, with all the money that he had received for the animal in his pocket; and had got much too far, during the first moments of surprise, for any of the bullets to take effect that were fired at him in his flight, and nothing further was ever heard of him or the horse.— Giovanni Finati.
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