Read Ebook: The History of Freedom and Other Essays by Acton John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton Baron

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Constantinople continued--Dangers of sketching--Turkish architecture--A Turkish acquaintance--Society in Constantinople--Visit to the Princes' Islands 24

Trip to AEgina--Discovery and transportation of the Marbles to Athens--Efforts to sell them 49

Life in Athens--Eleusis--Transportation of AEgina Marbles to Zante 59

Zante--Colonel Church--Leaves Zante to make tour of the Morea--Olympia--Bassae--Discovery of bas-reliefs--Forced to desist from excavations 68

Andritzena--Caritzena--Megalopolis--Benighted--Kalamata 79

Trip to Maina--Its relative prosperity--Return to Kalamata-- Second trip to Maina--Murginos--Sparta--Napoli to Athens 88

Expedition to the Labyrinth--Delli Yani--The interior--The return to Candia--Life there--Rejoins Mr. North--Bad weather--Expedition to Egypt abandoned--Scio--Leaves Mr. North to go to Smyrna--Storms--Danger and cold--Arrives at Smyrna 120

Life in Smyrna--Trip to Trios--Foster falls in love--Cockerell starts alone for town of Seven Churches--Pergamo--Knifnich-- Sumeh--Commerce all in the hands of Greeks--Karasman Oglu--Turcomans --Sardis--Allah Sheri--Crosses from Valley of Hermus to that of the Meander--Hierapolis--Danger of the country--Turns westwards 134

Adalia--Satalia --Alaia--Hostility of natives--Selinty--Cape Anemurium--Visit of a pasha--Chelindreh--Porto Cavaliero--Seleucia--A privateer--Natives hostile--Pompeiopolis--Tarsous--A poor reception--Explores a lake--Castle of Ayas--Captain Beaufort wounded by natives--Sails for Malta 173

Malta--Attacked by bilious fever--Sails to Palermo--Segeste--Leaves for Girgenti--Immigrant Albanians--Selinunto--Travelling with Sicilians--Girgenti--Restores the Temple of the Giants--Leaves for Syracuse--Occupations in Syracuse--Sale of the AEgina Marbles--Leaves for Zante 199

Athens--The excavation of marbles at Bassae--Bronstedt's mishap--Fate of the Corinthian capital of Bassae--Severe illness--Stackelberg's mishap --Trip to Albania with Hughes and Parker--Thebes--Livadia--The five emissaries--State of the country--Merchants of Livadia--Delphi--Salona --Galaxidi--Patras--Previsa--Nicopolis--Arta--The plague--Janina 216

Athens--To Zante for sale of Phigaleian Marbles--Returns to Athens--Fever--Spencer Stanhope--Trip to Marathon, &c.--Ramazan --Living out in the country--A picnic at Salamis--Presented with a block of Panathenaic frieze--Trip to AEgina--Leaves Athens for Italy 252

Naples--Pompeii--Rome--The German Rester got rid of--Social success in Rome--Leaves for Florence--Bartholdy and the Niobe group--Lady Dillon--The Wellington Palace--Pisa--Tour in the north--Meets Stackelberg again--Returns to Florence and Rome--Homeward bound--Conclusion 269

FRONTISPIECE

TRAVELS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE AND THE LEVANT

LEAVES LONDON FOR PLYMOUTH--THE DESPATCH VESSEL--THEY TAKE A FRENCH PRIZE--THE PRISONERS--AN ALARM--CADIZ--MALTA--LIFE ON BOARD--THE DARDANELLES--TAKES BOAT FOR CONSTANTINOPLE.

We did not set sail till the 19th. Once out in the open sea the two young midshipmen were very ill and so was our commander.

The poor Frenchmen were very miserable, and I, partly out of pity, and more because I wanted to practise speaking, rather made friends with them. They are very different from our men. They lounge about anyhow in a disorderly fashion, are much dirtier--in fact filthy, so that our sailors complain of them loudly in this respect--and are much livelier. I saw three of them sitting yesterday all of a heap reading 'T?l?maque' with the utmost avidity, and when they see me drawing, they seem to crawl all over me to watch the operation. My special friend is one Esprit Augin, who appears to be superior to the rest and to speak better. We talk together every day till I am tired. In spite of his grief at being a prisoner--and he appeared to feel his position more than any of them--he began the very next day to talk to me of balls, masquerades, promenades, and so on with inexpressible delight, and I even thought at one moment that we should have had a pas seul on the deck. He sang me no end of songs. He was as vain as he was lively. I told him I should like to make a drawing of a youth named Jean Requette, a handsome, clever-looking boy of the party; at which he sighed deeply and said, 'Moi je ne suis pas joli.'

Amongst other things, Augin told us that he had great hopes of being set free again, for that there were two French privateer frigates off Ferrol; and when we came off that point on Sunday the 29th, and I heard the boatswain sing out 'Two sail ahead,' we made sure we had met them. All glasses were out in an instant, and sure enough there were two privateers.

Too proud to alter it, we held quietly on our course, and they came quickly up with us. We made the private signals to them, but as the sun was low and just behind them we could not make out the answer or what colours they flew.

After this false alarm we went on to Cadiz without any event, beyond meeting with occasional merchantmen, whom we always thought proper to board.

I could not go ashore at Cadiz, and I shall never cease to regret it; but the orders of the naval authorities were peremptory that the lugger should proceed immediately with her despatches to Malta. We deposited our prisoners with the fleet."

"I like watching the sailors. Many of them are very fine fellows, and I have nearly filled my book with drawings of them and the Frenchmen. Self-consciousness had the most ludicrous effect upon them when I was doing their portraits, and great rough fellows who you might think would eat horseflesh would simper with downcast eyes, like a coquettish miss. Their ways of killing time are wonderful. Sometimes you see one whittling a piece of hard wood for some trifling purpose for hours and hours together. At another time, if an unfortunate little bird comes on to the vessel, they run about the rigging damning its eyes till they are tired out. There are some great singers amongst them, who treat us in the evenings. Their taste is to sing about two hundred verses to the same tune. I am told we have one highly accomplished, who can sing a song of three hundred. I only hope we shall never hear him.

We arrived at Malta overnight and awaited despatches, which we have received this morning. Everywhere the authorities are so solicitous that no time should be lost that we are sent on without mercy. I am told the despatches we brought here were of consequence; but, like all postmen, we know nothing of the contents of the letters we bring. Only we see that all rejoice and wish the commandant, General Oakes, joy. I also hear that the French are advancing on Sicily.

The harbour here is full of prizes. A frigate came in this morning full of shot holes. She had cut out a brig from Taranto in the face of two brigs, a schooner, and a frigate."

Meanwhile some notes were despatched by other means, and from them I extract the following:

"We took a pilot from Malta, a decayed Ragusan captain. Had I made but the first steps in Italian as I had in French, I might have profited by this opportunity as I did by the French prisoners; for the man spoke no other language, and was to direct us through a dangerous sea by signs and grimace as the only means of communication between us.

At first we had a fair wind, but as we got nearer the Morea it became less favourable and blew us nearly up to Zante. Some ancient writer records the saying in his day, 'Let him who is to sail round Taenarus take a last farewell of his relations;' and it is still dangerous, on account of the eddies of wind about Taygetus for one thing, and on account of the cruel Mainiote pirates for another. We passed it securely; but the story of an English brig of war having been boarded and taken by them while the captain and crew were at dinner, and that not long ago, put us on our guard. We had nettings up at night, and a sharp look-out at all hours.

I shall never forget how we made our entrance into the Hellespont with sixteen sail of Greek and Turkish fruit-boats, all going up to Constantinople.

No yachting match could be so pretty as these boats, tacking and changing their figures, with their white sails, painted sides, and elegant forms, as compared with our northern sea boats. Our superior sailing, however, was soon confessed, and we went past them. As we did so, several goodnaturedly threw cucumbers and other fruits on board.

The wind and current were against us, and we were forced to put ashore early in the evening of the first day. I pitched my tent on the shore opposite Abydos. It soon attracted the notice of an aga who appeared on a fine Arab horse, and sent a message to know who and what we were. We made a fire and stayed there all night sitting round it, and I felt as if I was at the theatre, passing my first night on foreign soil among strange bearded faces and curious costumes lit up by the flames. I refused a bed and slept on a rug, but next day I thought I should have dropped with faintness and fatigue.

I soon got accustomed to lying on hard ground, and, in after times, I have slept for many a three months running without even taking off my clothes except to bathe, or having any other bed than my pamplona or my pelisse. The second night we slept at Gallipoli, and altogether, owing to the strong wind, we were no less than five days getting to Constantinople.

Our Turks were obliging and cheerful, but had very little air of discipline, and the work they did they seemed to do by courtesy. The reis was a grave, mild old man, who sang us Turkish songs.

I left my boat and walked at once to the English palace with my despatches, which I then and there delivered."

FOOTNOTES:

The British fleet was at this time co-operating with the Spaniards in defending Cadiz against the French.

Afterwards Sir Hildebrand Oakes, Bart., G.C.B. Served with distinction in India, Egypt, America, and elsewhere.

No ships of war were ever allowed up to Constantinople in those days, and, indeed, much later.

Mr. Adair and Canning have been very polite, and I have dined frequently at the Palace, and although this is not the sort of society I very much covet, I find it so extremely useful that I cannot be too careful to keep up my acquaintance there. Mr. Canning, of whose kindness on all occasions I cannot speak too highly, has obliged me exceedingly in lending me a large collection of fairly faithful drawings of the interiors of mosques, some of them never drawn before, as well as other curious buildings here, made by a Greek of this place. In copying them I have been closely employed, as when Mr. Adair leaves, which will be shortly, they will be sent off to England. I had a scheme of drawing from windows, but it has failed. I find no Jew or Christian who is bold enough to admit me into his house for that purpose, so I have to work from memory. After having made a memorandum, I develop it at home, and then return again and again to make more notes, till at length the drawing gets finished. In arriving here just in time to take advantage of Mr. Adair's firman to see the mosques I was most fortunate. It is a favour granted to ambassadors only once, and Mr. Adair thinks himself lucky to get it before going away; but I will tell you in confidence that I regret very little the impossibility of drawing in them. They seem to me to be ill-built and barbarous.

Lord Byron and Mr. Hobhouse were of the party."

The Djerid, a mimic fight with javelins on horseback, now, I believe, entirely disused in Turkey, was still the favourite pastime of young Turks, and Cockerell speaks of it as being constantly played on the high open ground or park above Pera, and of his going to watch it.

"One day I was persuaded by an English traveller of my acquaintance to go a walk through Constantinople without our usual protection of a janissary, but the adventures which befell us in consequence made me very much repent of it, and put me a good deal out of conceit with the Turks. We walked to the gate of the Seraglio, in front of which there is a piazza with a very beautiful fountain in it. This lovely object was so attractive that I could not resist going up to it and examining the marble sculpture, painting, and gilding. Hereupon an old Turk who guarded the gate of the Seraglio, offended, I suppose, at my presuming to come so near, strode up with a long knotted stick and a volley of language which I could not understand, but which it was easy to see the drift of. I should have been glad to run away, but in the presence of Turks and other bystanders I resolved to fall a martyr rather than compromise my nation. So, waving my hand in token of assent to his desire for my withdrawal, I slowly paced my way back with as much dignity as I could assume. I heard my Turk behind coming on faster and more noisy, and I shall never forget the screwing up of the sinews of my back for the expected blow. It did not fall, or there would have ended my travels; for, either astonished at my coolness or satisfied with my assent, he desisted.

A little further on, in passing through the court of a mosque, I was gazing at some of the architectural enrichments of it, when I felt a violent blow on the neck. I looked down, and there was a sturdy little figure, with a face full of fury,eenth century. He demanded a code of moral judgment independent of place and time, and not merely relative to a particular civilisation. He also demanded that it should be independent of religion. His reverence for scholars knew no limits of creed or church, and he desired some body of rules which all might recognise, independently of such historical phenomena as religious institutions. At a time when such varied and contradictory opinions, both within and without the limits of Christian belief, were supported by some of the most powerful minds and distinguished investigators, it seemed idle to look for any basis of agreement beyond some simple moral principles. But he thought that all men might agree in admitting the sanctity of human life and judging accordingly every man or system which needlessly sacrificed it. It is this preaching in season and out of season against the reality of wickedness, and against every interference with the conscience, that is the real inspiration both of Acton's life and of his writings.

It is related of Frederick Robertson of Brighton, that during one of his periods of intellectual perplexity he found that the only rope to hold fast by was the conviction, "it must be right to do right." The whole of Lord Acton's career might be summed up in a counterphrase, "it must be wrong to do wrong." It was this conviction, universally and unwaveringly applied, and combined with an unalterable faith in Christ, which gave unity to all his efforts, sustained him in his struggle with ecclesiastical authority, accounted for all his sympathies, and accentuated his antipathies, while it at once expanded and limited his interests. It is this that made his personality so much greater a gift to the world than any book which he might have written--had he cared less for the end and more for the process of historical knowledge.

He was interested in knowledge--that it might diminish prejudice and break down barriers. To a world in which the very bases of civilisation seemed to be dissolving he preached the need of directing ideals.

Artistic interests were not strong in him, and the decadent pursuit of culture as a mere luxury had no stronger enemy. Intellectual activity, apart from moral purpose, was anathema to Acton. He has been censured for bidding the student of his hundred best books to steel his mind against the charm of literary beauty and style. Yet he was right. His list of books was expressly framed to be a guide, not a pleasure; it was intended to supply the place of University direction to those who could not afford a college life, and it throws light upon the various strands that mingled in Acton and the historical, scientific, and political influences which formed his mind. He felt the danger that lurks in the charm of literary beauty and style, for he had both as a writer and a reader a strong taste for rhetoric, and he knew how young minds are apt to be enchained rather by the persuasive spell of the manner than the living thought beneath it. Above all, he detested the modern journalistic craze for novelty, and despised the shallowness which rates cleverness above wisdom.

In the same way his admiration for Mr. Gladstone is to be explained. It was not his successes so much as his failures that attracted Acton, and above all, his refusal to admit that nations, in their dealings with one another, are subject to no law but that of greed. Doubtless one who gave himself no credit for practical aptitude in public affairs, admired a man who had gifts that were not his own. But what Acton most admired was what many condemned. It was because he was not like Lord Palmerston, because Bismarck disliked him, because he gave back the Transvaal to the Boers, and tried to restore Ireland to its people, because his love of liberty never weaned him from loyalty to the Crown, and his politics were part of his religion, that Acton used of Gladstone language rarely used, and still more rarely applicable, to any statesman. For this very reason--his belief that political differences do, while religious differences do not, imply a different morality--he censured so severely the generous eulogy of Disraeli, just as in D?llinger's case he blamed the praise of Dupanloup. For Acton was intolerant of all leniency towards methods and individuals whom he thought immoral. He could give quarter to the infidel more easily than to the Jesuit.

We may, of course, deny that Acton was right. But few intelligent observers can dispute the accuracy of his diagnosis, or deny that more than anything else the disease of Western civilisation is a general lack of directing ideals other than those which are included in the gospel of commercialism. It may surely be further admitted that even intellectual activity has too much of triviality about it to-day; that if people despise the schoolmen, it is rather owing to their virtues than their defects, because impressionism has taken the place of thought, and brilliancy that of labour. On the other hand, Acton's dream of ethical agreement, apart from religion, seems further off from realisation than ever.

The unbending severity of his judgment, which is sometimes carried to an excess almost ludicrous, is further explained by another element in his experience. In his letters to D?llinger and others he more than once relates how in early life he had sought guidance in the difficult historical and ethical questions which beset the history of the papacy from many of the most eminent ultramontanes. Later on he was able to test their answers in the light of his constant study of original authorities and his careful investigation of archives. He found that the answers given him had been at the best but plausible evasions. The letters make it clear that the harshness with which Acton always regarded ultramontanes was due to that bitter feeling which arises in any reflecting mind on the discovery that it has been put off with explanations that did not explain, or left in ignorance of material facts.

It is true that Acton's whole tendency was individualistic, and his inner respect for mere authority apart from knowledge and judgment was doubtless small. But here we must remember what he said once of the political sphere--that neither liberty nor authority is conceivable except in an ordered society, and that they are both relative to conditions remote alike from anarchy and tyranny. Doubtless he leaned away from those in power, and probably felt of Manning as strongly as the latter wrote of him. Yet his individualism was always active within the religious society, and never contemplated itself as outside. He showed no sympathy for any form of Protestantism, except the purely political side of the Independents and other sects which have promoted liberty of conscience.

The men who pay wages ought not to be the political masters of those who earn them, for laws should be adapted to those who have the heaviest stake in the country, for whom misgovernment means not mortified pride or stinted luxury, but want and pain and degradation, and risk to their own lives and to their children's souls.

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