Historic Finance.—The first tithe on movables was granted, or enacted, by papal authority, in 1188, for the Second Crusade. From 1334 subsidies of a fifteenth on goods in general, and a tenth from tenants of the royal demesne, became the principal form of direct taxation. Poll taxes (so-called), varying according to rank, were levied in 1377 and 1380, and on other occasions, the maximum being 60 groats, the minimum 1 groat (4d.) for man and wife. Children under 16 were exempt; and hence the outrage which gave the immediate occasion of Wat Tyler’s insurrection. “A fifteenth and tenth,” however, speedily came to mean a fixed sum of about £38,000, gradually sinking with the decay of particular towns to £32,000, levied by a fixed assessment on each shire and borough. A tax thus limited became, with the growth of national wealth and needs, ridiculously inadequate. A new land tax of 5 per cent. was granted in 1404, and a graduated income tax in 1435. But the customs on wool and hides exported and 2s. per ton on wine imported, with a general poundage of 6d. ad valorem on other exports and imports, were the only permanent and regular revenue of the Crown, and during the War of the Roses almost the sole addition to the yield of the royal estates. This hereditary revenue, however, sufficed for the ordinary expenses both of the State and the household. The great popularity of Edward IV. with the citizens, especially of London, enabled him to raise considerable benevolences, a practice which, forbidden by act of Parliament on the accession of Richard III., was resumed and carried to an often oppressive extent by Henry VIII. and his children. The old fifteenths and tenths were still granted from time to time, but under the Tudors were accompanied by subsidies in the nature of an income tax of 4s. on the rental of lands and 2s. 8d. on the total value of goods—yielding about £80,000. Each subsidy was accompanied by a clerical grant of 6s. in the pound of annual value, worth about £20,000. The last grant made to Elizabeth was of four subsidies and eight fifteenths and tenths, amounting in all perhaps to £640,000.—The Saturday Review.
The Three Unities.—As we have said, the groundwork of “The Cid” is wholly Spanish, but the beautiful poetry of many of the lines is wholly Corneille’s. And had Corneille been allowed to follow his own instincts, and write his play as his spirit moved him, it would probably be free from many of its absurdities. He was bound to observe the laws of “the three unities,” which the French pedants of those days thought necessary to make incumbent upon every one who wrote for the stage. These ignorantly learned men imagined that Aristotle on his own authority had promulgated laws to be observed in the composition of a dramatic poem, and that they should be always binding. The events in every play were to be comprised within 24 hours, the scene could not be changed, and in the play there should be only one interest or one line of action. These laws were as the sword of Damocles held over the heads of the French dramatists as they sat at their work. Richelieu had lent his voice in favor of the edict, and they dreaded being found guilty of insubordination. The authority of Aristotle was too high to be questioned, and because the Greek writers had so written they must be followed. The great Condé expressed himself as being terribly bored by a tragedy by the Abbé d’Aubignac. A friend of the author tried to excuse the play, saying that it was written exactly after the precepts of Aristotle. Condé replied: “I am charmed that the Abbé d’Aubignac should have followed Aristotle so carefully, but I cannot forgive Aristotle for having made the Abbé d’Aubignac write such a detestable tragedy!”—All the Year Round.
A Sunday-School Scholar.—Here is the pith of a talented youngster’s paper on the “Good Samaritan:” “A certing man went down from jerslam to jeriker, and he fell among thieves and the thorns sprang up and choaked him—whereupon he gave tuppins to the host, and praid take care on him and put him hon his hone hass. And he past by on the other side.” This and the following are not, as might be supposed, American exaggerations, but authenticated instances of examiners’ experiences. The last specimen is in answer to the question, “Who was Moses?” “He lived in a hark maid of bullrushes, and he kept a golden calf and worshipt braizen snakes, and he het nothin but qwhales and manner for forty years. He was kart by the air while riding under a bow of a tree and he was killed by his son Abslon as he was hanging from the bow. His end was peace.”—Chambers’s Journal.
A Mahdi of the Last Century.—It is interesting to look back a hundred years and trace the career of a former Mahdi, the Prophet Mansour, the Sheikh Oghan-Oolō, who burst on the Eastern world in 1785 as the Apostle of Mahomet, and went forth conquering and to conquer till Constantinople sought his alliance, and Russia armed herself cap-à-pied to resist his advance. It was early in March, at the commencement of the Ramadan, that a solitary horseman rode into Amadie, a town of Kourdistan, wearing the green turban which marked him as a descendant of Mahomet, a white woollen garment girt about the hips with a leathern girdle, and a pair of yellow sandals. His imposing stature, dignified manners, flashing yet melancholy eyes, vast forehead, and magnificent black beard showed him to be a king among men; and the rigor of his fast, combined with the fervor of his perpetual prayers in the mosque which he never quitted, proved him in the eyes of the faithful to be a saint of the finest water. When Ramadan was over the new Prophet assumed the post of authority in the mosque which had witnessed his prayers and vigils, and proclaimed the twenty-four articles of a reformed creed. The majority of them were drawn from the Koran, others from the Mosaic statutes, some few were of Pagan origin, and the final item was the Christian maxim, “Thou shalt love the Lord with all thine heart, and thy neighbor as thyself.” This evangel was not, however, accepted with as much readiness as might have been anticipated. It was necessary to make a bold stroke and secure the wavering allegiance of the people of Amadie, so the Prophet declared that Mahomet, in his inscrutable wisdom, had chosen them to carry the new law to the Gentiles, and that to them would belong the exclusive right to punish impenitent sinners with the weapons he was about to send them. A few days later four men arrived from Sinope escorting a quantity of arms and ammunition of European manufacture. These worthies were all of different nationalities, one being Tabet Habib, a Persian merchant and money-lender of Scutari, another a Frenchman named Cléophe Thévenot, a third Camillo Rutigliano, a Neapolitan, and the fourth a German, or probably a Jew, called Samuel Goldemberg. The arms were at once distributed among the most enthusiastic converts, who, however, numbered less than a hundred. On April 20 the little band marched from Amadie to Taku, where the Prophet summoned the inhabitants, explained his mission, and read the new code of regulations. Those who gave in their allegiance were enrolled and armed, while the recalcitrants were put to the sword. The Prophet now found himself at the head of several thousand troops, undisciplined it is true, but amenable to the orders of such a ruling spirit as himself. They were approaching Bitlis, a fortified city containing about twenty thousand souls, defended by a fortress perched on an inaccessible rock, and garrisoned by five hundred Turkish troops. The Pasha in charge determined to show fight, so he summoned the citizens to the ramparts and confided the fortress to the soldiers. It was all in vain, for the invading army took Bitlis by assault, and the Prophet, by way of example, impaled the poor Pasha, his officers, and the chief men of the place, and delivered the city over to the tender mercies of his soldiers for three days and three nights. The army next marched to Mush, where the terrified Aga opened his gates, and the Prophet assured the inhabitants that no harm should befall them if they supplied his troops with fresh provisions, and all the young men between twenty and thirty enrolled themselves under his banners. The Prophet had a keen eye as a military tactician, for Erzeroum is the centre from which the caravan routes to Van, Trebizond, Tiflis, and Siwas, diverge. The conqueror turned northwards, taking possession of half a dozen towns as he went along, and at length sat down before the fortress of Akhalzik, which was then pretty much as it is now, a strongly fortified city on the Turco-Russian frontier, containing about 30,000 inhabitants and a Turkish garrison 5,000 strong. The Pasha and his troops defended themselves bravely, but after spending ten days in trenches before the walls, the Prophet ordered an assault, and Akhalzik fell as Bitlis had done at the outset. The Pasha and his officers were impaled, those who submitted were allowed to swell the conquering hosts, the impenitent and stubborn was massacred, and the city burned and sacked. As the troops stood shouting over the smoking ruins, they hailed their chief as “Mansour,” or the Victor, and by that name he is principally known to history. Recruits began to come in apace from all the neighboring provinces, and Mansour saw himself at the head of 40,000 men, poorly armed but ready for anything; so he marched straight on Erzeroum, the gates of which were open to him. The booty he always reserved for himself on entering a city was the right to choose all the most beautiful women as slaves; but he did it only to save them from the horrors that would otherwise have awaited them, and the shame of exposure in the bazaar. He neither loved nor trusted women, and had flung all passions save ambition behind him. If the Prophet Mansour had chosen at this moment to turn his arms against Constantinople, there is no doubt that he would have succeeded, and if he had become master of the Porte, it is probable that the “sick man” would never have troubled the councils of Europe. But instead of invading Turkey, he became its ally against Russia, apparently on the understanding that he was to be recognised as undisputed sovereign of all the countries he could rescue from the grasp of the Northern Bear. Kars fell into his hands after a bombardment of six hours. This secured his line of retreat, and he led his men over the mountains to Tiflis, where Heraclius, King of Georgia, awaited him on the marshy plain of Kours with an army of 50,000, 10,000 of whom were tried Russian troops, sent to his aid by Catherine. The opposing hosts were equal as to numbers; the tide of battle rose and fell for three long days, and Heraclius was totally defeated. Twenty-two thousand of his men were slain, and 10,000 taken prisoners and sold as slaves at Constantinople. Mansour took possession of the royal palace, abandoning the city of Tiflis to his soldiers, and in a letter written from thence he for the first time used the signature of Sheikh Oghan-Oolō. Turkey now began to see that her ally might very easily become her master, and endeavored to undermine his influence. He was perfectly aware of all her little intrigues, and when a courteous ambassador was sent to him, reproached him with the treason and perfidy of the Porte, and thundered forth a threat to go himself to Constantinople for an answer to the charge. In less than a month all preparations were made, and, assembling his large army, Mansour read to them a proclamation from Mahomet, commanding him to annihilate the Osmanlis and place a faithful prince on the throne of Constantinople. As the Prophet was quite aware that if he took Constantinople he would have to deal with the united strength of France, Austria, and Russia, he thereupon concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with the Sheikh-ul-Islam, and promised to turn his arms against Russia. From that moment fortune forsook Mansour. He returned to the Caucasus, and endeavored to raise the Lesghiens Tartars, and had a victorious engagement with the Russian general Apraxin, who had to retreat to Kashgar. Gradually the tribes and nations fell away from him, and gave in their allegiance to Catherine, and at last Mansour was closely besieged by General Gadowitz in Anapa, on the Black Sea. He refused to capitulate, and the Russian troops carried the town and fortress by assault. At the head of the long line of prisoners who defiled past the conqueror walked the Prophet, a noble and dignified figure even in his fall. Gadowitz himself presented Mansour to the Empress, who treated him with the respect due to a brave and gallant foe. She received him with every mark of honor, gave him an annual pension of about £4,000, and assigned to him a residence in the little town of Solowetz, on the Black Sea. There he entered a convent of Armenian monks, wrote his memoirs, and corresponded with his family until his death in 1798. This eighteenth century Mahdi thus ended his days in obscurity, and when but little past his prime. He no doubt died of ennui and disappointment, for adventure had been as the bread of life to his soul from babyhood. The most curious part of his story remains to be told. He was neither Sheikh nor Prophet, not even a Mussulman, and least of all an Oriental. His name was Jean Baptiste Boetti, and he was the son of an Italian notary, destined for the medical profession, which did not please him, and he ultimately became a Dominican monk. Little or nothing of all this would have been known had not Boetti, when figuring as the Prophet Mansour, been weak enough to write his own autobiography piecemeal at dead of night. He kept the manuscript in his jewel casket, but one day his chancellor, one of the three Europeans who were in his confidence, eloped with a lovely Georgian girl and the casket. On reaching Constantinople, this individual sold the papers to the representative of the King of Sardinia, and they were recently discovered by Professor Ottino, of Turin, among the archives of Piedmont.—Time.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Bala Murgháb, where Sir P. Lumsden and his party have passed the winter, is apparently built on the site of the old city of Abshín, which was the capital of the Shárs of Gharshistan, a line of princes of great celebrity in Oriental history. The family was of Persian descent, and reigned in Gharshistan (the upper valley of the Murgháb) for nearly two centuries during the Samanide and Ghaznevide dynasties, the Shar Abu Nasar, who was defeated by Mahomud and died in captivity at Ghazni in A.H. 406, being one of the most learned men of his time.
[2] See Pall Mall Gazette, March 2, 1885.