European existence, still sit like barbarous | conquerors on the lands they won, though they retain in servitude and degradation millions of Christain subjects, though they perpetuate the hopeless desolation of vast provinces, and though these provinces are the very fairest regions of the known world and the most famous scenes of ancient story-yet for all this, in the event of an invasion, they would command the sympathy and favor of thousands to whom the "balance of power" would be a strange and unintelligible proposition. For the conclusions of statesmen there would no doubt be sufficient warrant in the obvious danger to public peace and freedom from the aggrandizement, by such vast acquisitions, of a Power already so menacing and aggressive as Russia; but their main source, we think, must be sought in that popular instinct which naturally inclines to the weaker side, and with a stronger and more decided bias as the violence attempted to be exercised is more gratuitous—and cruel. The considerations which now tend to the disparagement of the Turks are feeble and inoperative, compared with those which are acting in their favor. They are semi-barbarians, and they are misbelievers: they have not im proved, by the policy or enlightenment of their rule, the title which they originally derived from conquest: But they are as they were made. They retain their native impress of character, and they have repeatedly shamed States of more lofty pretensions, by their magnanimity, their generosity, their unswerv ing adherence to their plighted faith and presumptive duties, and by that disdainful grandeur of soul which refuses to avail itself of another's error, and renders to misfortune a homage which had never been extorted from them by power. Very recent events have shown that the communication of European forms to Ottoman institutions, however it may have affected the vigor and elasticity of the national strength, has, at least, not impaired the national virtues; nor has there, probably, been any period since the war, at which the encroachments of an overgrown Power upon its defenceless neighbor would excite more general indignation, or induce more serious results. These are things within the daily observation of all; what we have previously deduced from the less obvious facts of history may elucidate, we hope, the character of the long-pending crisis, and facilitate the comprehension of the great problem which will be one day solved. From the New Monthly Magazine. JAFFAR. INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF SHELLEY. BY LEIGH HUNT. SHELLEY, take this to thy dear memory:- JAFFAR, the Barmecide, the good Vizier, All but the brave Mondeer.-He, proud to show "Bring me this man," the caliph cried. The man Was brought was gaz'd upon. ́The mutes began To bind his arms. Welcome, brave cords!" cried he; "From bonds far worse Jaff àr deliver'd me; From wants, from shames, from loveless household fears; Restor'd me-lov'd me-put me on a par Haroun, who felt, that on a soul like this And said, "Let worth grow frenzied, if it will; Go; and since gifts thus move thee, take this gem, And hold the giver as thou deemest fit." "Gifts!" cried the friend. He took; and holding it High toward the heavens, as though to meet his star, Exclaim'd, "This, too, I owe to thee, Jaffàr!" From the Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review. EPIDEMICS. Epidemics of the Middle Ages, from the German of J. F. C. HECKER, M.D. Translated by B. C. BABINGTON, M.D. THE late epidemic has revealed the exist- | ence, and fearfully illustrated the destructive power, of some unknown agents of mortality, the precise nature and cause of which, in their connection with known and more familiar morbific influences, have hitherto been suffered to remain involved in the deepest obscurity. It leaves us with the unpleasant conviction that the accounts handed down to us of the ravages of pestilence in ancient times, were not historical exaggerations, as they have generally been considered, and that we have been laboring under a mistake in supposing that modern civilization had attained an immunity from similar desolating and wide-spread calamities. The work of Dr. Hecker on the epidemics of the middle ages, recently translated by Dr. Babington, has now become one of serious interest, as belonging, not to the past alone, but connecting the past with the present, and relating to physical phenomena which there is now reason to believe to be constantly latent, and the manifestation of which may be expected at frequently recurring intervals. With a view to the practical conclusions which may perhaps be drawn from this volume, and from other sources, we propose to give some account of its contents. The work, which we owe to the Sydenham Society, by whom it is published, commences with a treatise upon the pestilence of the fourteenth century, called the "Black Death," by which it is computed twenty-five millions of people-one-fourth of the then population of Europe, were destroyed. This pestilence broke out in the reign of Edward the Third, and was undoubtedly the most marked event of that reign; but it is passed over by Hume, in his life of that monarch, in a paragraph of a dozen lines, with a note of reference to Stow-a striking instance of the haste and superficial carelessness with which history is sometimes written. Stow mentions it, in his "Survey of London," in explanation of the appropriation of a large plot of ground, without the walls, to the purposes of a cemetery, situate at the back of what is now Charter-house-square, and bounded on the north by Wilderness-row, St. John-street. His account is the following: "A great pestilence entering this island, which began first in Dorsetshire, then proceeded into Oxfordshire, and at length came to London, Devonshire, Somersetshire, Gloucestershire, and and overspread all England, so wasting the people, that scarce the tenth person of all sorts was left alive; and churchyards were not sufficient to receive the dead, but men were forced to choose out certain fields for burials; whereupon, Ralph bought a piece of ground called 'No Man's Stratford, Bishop of London, in the year 1348, Land,' which he inclosed with a wall of brick, and dedicated for burial of the dead, building thereupon a proper chapel, which is now enlarged and made a dwelling-house; and this burying. plot is become a fair garden, retaining the old name of Pardon churchyard. About this, in the year 1349, the said Sir Walter Manny, in respect of danger that might befall in this time of so great a plague and infection, purchased thirteen acres and a rod of ground adjoining to the said No Man's Land, and lying in a place called 'Spittle Cross,' because it belonged to St. Bartilmewe's Hospital, since that called the new church-haw, and caused it to be consecrated by the said Bishop of London to the use of burials. "In this plot of ground there were in that year more than fifty thousand persons buried, as I have read in the charters of Edward III.; also, I have seen and read an inscription fixed on a stone cross, some time standing in the same churchyard, and having these words: Anno Domini 1349, regnante magna pestilentia consecratum fuit hoc caterii, sepulta fuerunt mortuorum corpora plusmiterium, in quo et infra septa presentis monasquam quinquaginta millia, præter alia multa abhinc usque ad presens, quorum animabus propitietur Deus. Amen.' ”* * Stow's Survey of London, p. 160. This ancient cemetery, or the greater part of it, is now used as a play-ground and garden by the boys of the Charter-house, and few persons in London are aware of the orig-ple, inal destination of the large enclosure of this neighborhood, the interior of which is hidden by high walls from surrounding observation. The disease which led to its appropriation as a burial ground, is described by Hecker as a species of oriental plague, exhibiting itself in inflammatory boils and tumors of the glands, accompanied with burning thirst; sometimes, also, with inflammation of the lungs, and expectoration of blood; in other cases, with vomitings of blood and fluxes of the bowels, terminating, like malignant cholera, with a discoloration of the skin, and black spots indicating putrid decomposition, from which it was called, in the north of Europe, the Black Death." In Italy it obtained the name of "La mortalega granda," -the great mortality. The attacks were usually fatal within two or three days of the first symptoms appearing, but in many cases were even more sudden, some falling as if struck by lightning. Its effects were not confined to man; in some countries affecting dogs, cats, fowls, and other animals, which died in great numbers; and in England the disease was followed by a murrain among the cattle, occasioning a great rise in the price of food.* The Black Death was supposed to have commenced in the kingdom of Cathay, to * At the commencement, there was in England a superabundance of all the necessaries of life; but the plague, which seemed then to be the sole disease, was soon accompanied by a fatal murrain among the cattle. Wandering about without herdsmen they fell by thousands; and, as has likewise been observed in Africa, the birds and beasts of prey are said not to have touched them. Of what nature this murrain may have been, can no more be determined, than whether it originated from communication with plague patients, or from other causes; but thus much is certain, that it did not break out until after the commencement of the Black Death. In consequence of this murrain, and the impossibility of removing the corn from the fields, there was everywhere a great rise in the price of food which to many was inexplicable, because the harvest had been plentiful; by others it was attrib uted to the wicked designs of the laborers and dealers; but it really had its foundation in the actual deficiency arising from circumstances by which in dividual classes at all times endeavor to profit. For a whole year, until it terminated in August, 1849, the Black Plague prevailed in this beautiful island, and every where poisoned the springs of comfort and prosperity. Hecker's "Epidemics of the Middle Ages." the north of China, in the year 1333, and thence to have spread in a westerly direction across the continent of Asia to Constantinowhere it made its appearance in the year 1347. In 1348 it visited Avignon, and other cities in the south of France and north of Italy and Spain. The following year it ravaged England, appearing first in Dorsetshire, attacking Bristol, Gloucester, Oxford, and London, and thence proceeding northward to Norwich, Yarmouth, Leicester, and York, which suffered immense losses; some of these cities losing nine-tenths of their inhabitants. The pestilence next visited Scotland, Norway, Russia, and Poland, which latter country, however, it did not reach until two years after its first appearance in the south of Europe. In Poland, it is stated, three-fourths of the entire population perished, and in Norway two-thirds. In Russia, also, the mortality is said to have been equally great. The total mortality of this period is thus summed up by Dr. Hecker: "Kairo lost daily, when the plague was raging with its greatest violence, from 10,000 to 15,000; being as many as, in modern times, great plagues have carried off during their whole course. In China, more than thirteen millions are said to have died; and this is in correspondence with the certainly exaggerated accounts from the rest of Asia. India was depopulated. Tartary, the Tartar kingdom of Kaptschaka, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, were covered with dead bodies; the Koords Cæsarea none were left alive. On the roads, in fled in vain to the mountains. In Caramania and the camps, in the caravansaries, unburied bodies alone were seen; and a few cities only (Arabian historians name Maara-el-nooman, Schiesur, and Harem) remained in an unaccountable manner free. In Aleppo 500 died daily; 22,000 people, and most of the animals, were carried off in Gaza within six weeks. Cyprus lost almost all its inhabitants; and ships without crews were often seen in the Mediterranean, or afterward in the North Sea, driving about, and spreading the plague wherever they went on shore. It was reported to Pope Clement, at Avignon, that throughout the East, probably with the exception of China, 23,840,000 people had fallen victims to the plague. Considering the occurrences of the 14th and 15th centuries, we might, on first view, suspect the accuracy of this statement. How, it might be asked, could such great wars have been carried on--such powerful efforts have been made? how could the Greek empire, only a hundred years later, have been overthrown, if the people really had been so utterly destroyed? This account is nevertheless rendered credi ble by the ascertained fact, that the palaces of princes are less accessible to contagious diseases than the dwellings of the multitude; and that in places of importance, the influx from those districts which have suffered least soon repairs even "This short catalogue might, by a laborious and uncertain calculation, deduced from other sources, be easily further multiplied, but would still fail to give a true picture of the depopulation which took place. Lübeck, at that time the Venice of the North, which could no longer contain the multitudes that flocked to it, was thrown into such consternation on the eruption of the plague, that the citizens destroyed themselves as if in frenzy." by St. Anthony in the preceding century, styling themselves Brothers of the Cross, or Cross-bearers, but called by the people flagellants, from their rule of submitting to a severe public flogging as a means of averting the anger of Heaven. This order was at first confined to the poorer classes, but ultimately many nobles and ecclesiastics enrolled themselves in the order. Their practice was to march through cities in well-organized processions, clothed in sombre garments, their faces covered up to the forehead, knotted scourges in their hands, and singing hymns with their eyes fixed upon the ground. Tapers and magnificent banners of velvet and cloth of gold were carried before them, and wherever they made their appearance the bells were set ringing, and the people flocked to welcome them as a holy band, by whose intercession the pestilence might be diverted from its course. "Whoever was desirous of joining the brotherhood, was bound to remain in it thirty-four days, and to have four-pence per day at his own disposal, so that he might not be burthensome to any one ; if married, he was obliged to have the sanction of his wife, and give the assurance that he was reconciled to all men. The Brothers of the Cross were not permitted to seek for free quarters, or even to enter a house without having been invited; they were forbidden to converse with females; and if they transgressed these rules, or acted without discretion, they were obliged to confess to the superior, who sentenced them to several lashes of the scourge, by way of penance. The consternation which seized the inhaEcclesiastics had not, as such, any pre-eminence bitants of every country through which the among them; according to their original law, plague passed was such, that in a multitude which, however, was often transgressed, they of instances the effects of fear alone were could not become masters, or take part in the seprobably as fatal as the pestilence. Every- cret councils. Penance was performed twice where a feeling of torpor and a depression every day; in the morning and evening, they of spirits, almost amounting to despair, be- ringing of the bells; and when they arrived at went abroad in pairs, singing psalms, amid the came universal; and this frequently taking the place of flagellation, they stripped the upper a religious form, the wealthy, we are told, part of their bodies, and put off their shoes, keepabandoned their treasures, and gave their ing on only a linen dress, reaching from the waist villages and estates to the churches and mo- to the ankles. They then lay down in a large nasteries, as the surest way, according to the circle, in different positions, according to the nanotions of the age, of securing the forgive-ture of their crime the adulterer with his face to ness of their past sins. Thus was the first impulse given to the erection of those magnificent cathedrals, which yet remain to the admirers of what is called Gothic architecture, in the northern parts of Europe; buildings, commenced for the most part in the fourteenth century, and which were completed by the piety of the succeeding age. The same spirit was manifested in a more superstitious shape in a zeal for fasting and penance, which revived and extended a new order of religionists, said to have been founded | the ground; the perjurer on one side, holding up three of his fingers, &c., and were then castigated, some more and some less, by the master, who ordered them to rise in the words of a prescribed form. Upon this they scourged themselves, amid the singing of psalms and loud supplications for the averting of the plague, with genuflexions and other ceremonies, of which cotemporary writers give various accounts; and at the same time constantly boasted of their penance, that the blood of their wounds was mingled with that of the Saviour. One of them, in conclusion, stood up to read a letter which it was pretended an angel had brought from Heaven, to St. Peter's church, at |