Another half century has passed since this was written, and the Turkish power has now completed its eighth century since Togrul Beg, the first Seljukian Sultan; and what has been the fruit of so long a duration? Just about the time of Togrul Beg, flourished William, Duke of Normandy; he passed over to take possession of England; compare the England of the Conquest with the England of this day. Again, compare the Rome of Junius Brutus to the Rome of Constantine, 800 years afterwards. In each of these polities there was a continuous progression, and the end was unlike the beginning; but the Turks, except that they have gained the faculty of political union, are pretty much what they were when they crossed the Jaxartes and Oxus. Again, at the time of Togrul Beg, the Greek schism also took place; now from Michael Cerularius, in 1054, to Anthimus, in 1853, Patriarchs of Constantinople, eight centuries have passed of religious deadness and insensibility: a longer time has passed in China of a similar political inertness: yet China has preserved at least the civilization, and Greece the ecclesiastical science, with which they respectively passed into their long sleep; but the Turks of this day are still in the less than infancy of art, literature, philosophy, and general knowledge; and we may fairly conclude that, if they have not learned the very alphabet of science in eight hundred years, they are not likely to set to work on it in the nine hundredth.
Moreover, it is remarkable that with them, as with the ancient Medes and Persians, change of law and government is distinctly prohibited. The greatest of their Sultans, and the last of the great ten, Soliman, known in European history as the Magnificent, is called by his compatriots the Regulator, on account of the irreversible sanction which he gave to the existing administration of affairs. "The magnitude and the splendour of the military achievements of Soliman," says Mr. Thornton, "are surpassed in the judgment of his people by the wisdom of his legislation. He has acquired the name of Canuni, or institutor of rules ... on account of the order and police which he established in his Empire. He caused a compilation to be made of all the maxims and regulations of his predecessors on subjects of political and military economy. He strictly defined the duties, the powers, and the privileges of all governors, commanders, and public functionaries, He regulated the levies, the services, the equipments, and the pay of the military and maritime force of the Empire. He prescribed the mode of collecting, and of applying, the public revenue. He assigned to every officer his rank at court, in the city, and in the army; and the observance of his regulations was enforced on his successors by the sanction of his authority. The work, which his ancestors had begun, and which his care had completed, seemed to himself and his contemporaries the compendium of human wisdom. Soliman contemplated it with the fondness of a parent; and, conceiving it not to be susceptible of further improvement, he endeavoured to secure its perpetual duration." The author, after pointing out that this was done at the very time when a new hemisphere was in course of exploration, when the telescope was mapping for mankind the heavens, when the Baconian philosophy was about to convert discovery and experiment into instruments of science, printing was carrying knowledge and literature into the heart of society, and the fine arts were receiving one of their most remarkable developments, proceeds: "The institutions of Soliman placed a barrier between his subjects and future improvement. He beheld with complacency and exultation the eternal fabric which his hands had reared; and the curse denounced against pride has reduced the nation, which participated in his sentiments, to a state of inferiority to the present level of civilized men." The result is the same, though we say that Soliman only recognized and affirmed that barbarism was the law of the Ottoman power.
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3. It is true that in the last quarter of a century efforts have been made by the government of Constantinople to innovate on the existing condition of its people; and it has addressed itself in the first instance to certain details of daily Turkish life. We must take it for granted that it began with such changes as were easiest; if so, its failure in these small matters suggests how little ground there is for hope of success in other advances more important and difficult. Every one knows that in the details of dress, carriage, and general manners, the Turks are very different from Europeans: so different, and so consistently different, that the contrariety would seem to arise from some difference of essential principle. "This dissimilitude," says Mr. Thornton, "which pervades the whole of their habits, is so general, even in things of apparent insignificance, as almost to indicate design rather than accident. The whole exterior of the Oriental is different from ours." And then he goes on to mention some specimens, to which we are able to add others from Volney and Bell. For instance:—The European stands firm and erect; his head drawn back, his chest advanced, his toes turned out, his knees straight. The attitude of the Turk, in each of these particulars, is different, and, to express myself by an antithesis, is more conformable to nature, and less to reason. The European wears short and close garments, the Turk long and ample. The one uncovers the head, when he would show reverence; with the other, a bared head is a sign of folly. The one salutes by an inclination, the other by raising himself. The one passes his life upright, the other sitting. The one sits on raised seats, the other on the ground. In inviting a person to approach, the one draws his hand to him, the other thrusts it from him. The host in Europe helps himself last; in Turkey, first. The one drinks to his company, or at least to some toast; the other drinks silently, and his guests congratulate him. The European has a night dress, the Turk lies down in his clothes. The Turkish barber pushes the razor from him; the Turkish carpenter draws the saw to him; the Turkish mason sits as he builds; and he begins a house at the top, and finishes at the bottom, so that the upper rooms are inhabited, when the bottom is a framework.
Now it would seem as if this multitude of little usages hung together, and were as difficult to break through as the meshes of some complicated web. However, the Sultan found it the most favourable subject-matter of his incipient reformation; and his consequent attempt and the omens of its ultimate issue are interestingly recounted in the pages of Sir Charles Fellows, the panegyrist both of Mahmood and his people. "The Turk," he says, "proud of his beard, comes up from the province a candidate for, or to receive, the office of governor. The Sultan gives him an audience, passes his hand over his own short-trimmed beard; the candidate takes the hint, and appears the next day shorn of his honoured locks. The Sultan, who is always attired in a plain blue frock coat, asks of the aspirant for office if he admires it; he, of course, praises the costume worn by his patron; whereupon the Sultan suggests that he would look well in it, as also in the red unturbaned fez. The following day the officer again attends to receive or lose his appointment; and, to promote the progress of his suit, throws off his costly and beautiful costume, and appears like the Sultan in the dull unsightly frock."
Such is the triumph of loyalty and self-interest, and such is its limit. "A regimental cloak," continues our author, "may sometimes be seen covering a fat body inclosed in all the robes of the Turkish costume; the whole bundle, including the fur-lined gown, being strapped together round the waist. Some of the figures are literally as broad as long, and have a laughable effect on horseback. The saddles for the upper classes are now generally made of the European form; but the people, who cannot give up their accustomed love of finery for plain leather, have them mostly of purple or crimson velvet, embroidered with silver or gold, the holsters ornamented with beautiful patterns." After a while, he continues: "One very unpopular reform which the Sultan tried to effect in the formation of his troops was that of their wearing braces, a necessary accompaniment to the trousers; and why? because these form a cross, the badge of the infidel, upon the back. Many, indeed, will submit to severe punishment, and even death, for disobedience to military orders, rather than bear upon their persons this sign hostile to their religion."
In another place he continues this subject with an amusing accuracy of analysis:—"The mere substitution of trousers for their loose dress interferes seriously with their old habits; they all turn in their toes, in consequence of the Turkish manner of sitting, and they walk wide, and with a swing, from being habituated to the full drapery: this gait has become natural to them, and in their European trousers they walk in the same manner. They wear wide-topped loose boots, which push up their trousers. Wellington boots would be still more inconvenient, as they must slip them off six times a day for prayers. In this new dress they cannot with comfort sit or kneel on the ground, as is their custom; and they will thus be led to use chairs; and with chairs they will want tables. But, were these to be introduced, their houses would be too low, for their heads would almost touch the ceiling. Thus by a little innovation might their whole usages be unhinged."
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4. In these failures, however, should they turn out to be such, the vis inertiæ of habit is not the whole account of the matter; an antagonistic principle is at work, characteristic of the barbarian, and intimately present to the mind of a Turk—national pride. All nations, indeed, are proud of themselves; but, as being the first and the best, not as being the solitary existing perfection, among the inhabitants of the earth. Civilized nations allow that foreigners have their specific excellences, and such excellences as are a lesson to themselves. They may think too well of their own proficiency, and may lose by such blindness; but they admit enough about others to allow of their own emulation and advance; whereas the barbarian, in his own estimate, is perfect already; and what is perfect cannot be improved. Hence he cherishes in his heart a self-esteem of a very peculiar kind, and a special contempt of others. He views foreigners, either as simply unworthy of his attention, or as objects of his legitimate dominion. Thus, too, he justifies his sloth, and places his ignorance of all things human and divine on a sort of intellectual basis.
Robertson, in his history of America, enlarges on this peculiarity of the savage. "The Tartar," he says, "accustomed to roam over extensive plains, and to subsist on the produce of his herds, imprecates upon his enemy, as the greatest of all curses, that he may be condemned to reside in one place, and to be nourished with the top of a weed. The rude Americans ... far from complaining of their own situation, or viewing that of men in a more improved state with admiration or envy, regard themselves as the standard of excellence, as beings the best entitled, as well as the most perfectly qualified, to enjoy real happiness.... Void of foresight, as well as free from care themselves, and delighted with that state of indolent security, they wonder at the anxious precautions, the unceasing industry, and complicated arrangements of Europeans, in guarding against distant evils, or providing for future wants; and they often exclaim against their preposterous folly, in thus multiplying the troubles, and increasing the labour of life.... The appellation which the Iroquois give to themselves is, 'The chief of men.' Caraibe, the original name of the fierce inhabitants of the Windward Islands, signifies 'The warlike people.' The Cherokees, from an idea of their own superiority, call the Europeans 'Nothings,' or 'The accursed race,' and assume to themselves the name of 'The beloved people....' They called them the froth of the sea, men without father or mother. They suppose that either they have no country of their own, and, therefore, invaded that which belonged to others; or that, being destitute of the necessaries of life at home, they were obliged to roam over the ocean, in order to rob such as were more amply provided."[83]