what Heylyn goes on to state. "Thus have
you seene Ireland, which before served onely
as a grave to bury our best men, and a gulfe
to swallow our greatest treasures, being
governed neither as a countrey free, nor
conquered, brought in some hope, by the
prudence and policy of her present King and
late deputies, to prove an orderly commonwealth,
civil in itselfe, profitable to the prince,
and a good strength to the British Empire.
For now the way-fareing men travell without
danger, the ploughman walketh without feare,
the laws are administered in every place alike,
the men are drawn unto villages, the woods
and fastnesses left to beasts, and all reduced to
that civility as our fathers never saw, nor can
wee sample out of ancient histories." The
pen-men are the greatest civilisers of the
world, and poets sometimes not among the
least practical. How much of the above Irish
reformation may have been attributable to
Spenser's searching exposition of grievances
in his 'View of the State of Ireland,' published
in fifteen hundred and ninety-six !

A few words about the North Sea and the
islands it contains, and we have done.
Greenland is described as nourishing "a
people dwelling in caves, and delighting in
necromancie." Iceland is quaintly and
happily called "a damnable cold country,
whence it seemes to take its name;" and
Nova Zembla we learn "is famous for nothing
but the pigmies which are here supposed to
inhabite." Concerning the North Sea itself,
Heylyn relates a fiction out of Tacitus, which
appears to us to be one of the grandest ever
conceived, and which, as it may not be known
to all readers, we will here transcribe:
"Beyond the Swethlanders there is another
sea, so slow and almost immovable that many
thinke it to bee the bounds which compasse
in the whole world. Some are persuaded
that the sound of the Sun is heard as hee riseth
out of this sea; and that many shapes of God
are seene, and the beames of His head. At
this sea (the report is credible) is the end of
Nature and the world."

In the full surge of this stupendous and
celestial harmony, we shake hands with
Peter, and part company.

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

EDUCATION IN TURKEY.

THE Greek Commercial School at Halki
is the most important educational establishment
in Turkey. It is situated on the brow
of a lofty hill, and forms the chief point of
view in one of the little group of islands not
far from Constantinople. It is now a building
of some pretensions and extent, but it
has undergone many changes. It occupies
the spot where formerly stood an institution
founded by John Paleologus, one of the Greek
emperors, so early as fourteen hundred and
twenty-five. On the destruction of this
building, another rose upon its ruins, of
which the famous Ipsilanti was the founder;
but this was, in its turn, also destroyed.
Education is not a subject which has excited
much attention in Turkey, and therefore,
although the ground belonged to the Greek
Patriarchate it was suffered for some years to
lie waste. In later years, a small and ill-
conducted school was once more established
there, but it died a natural death in eighteen
hundred and forty-seven.

The modern school sprung into life in
eighteen hundred and forty-nine, and has
been rapidly increasing ever since, in importance
and reputation, until it now numbers
one hundred and eighty scholars. Fifteen
fresh applications have been just refused for
want of room to lodge the candidates. When
the population of the Turkish Empire is
considered, and the overwhelming numerical
superiority of the Greeks, this will not appear
a very large number of students; but when
we think of the general state of civilisation
in Turkey, and remember that the present
establishment is only four years old, perhaps
the progress it has made in that time will
seem more satisfactory.

The students are nearly all of the higher
class: that is to say, the better sort of
merchants' sons and they pay about thirty pounds
a year, including every extra. The utmost
attention is paid to their instruction and
comfort. I have seldom visited a school in
which the general order and arrangements
are better. The dormitories are light and well
ventilated, though perhaps rather crowded;
each has an usher's room at the end, from
which a glass door enables him to see all that
is going on. The diet of the boys is liberal—
a cup of coffee and a slice of dry bread after
morning prayers, a breakfast of meat and
fruit at twelve o'clock, and a plain dinner at
six. Their drink at dinner is water. During
that meal, one of the ushers reads history.

Their recreation is only an hour's play after
every meal, which is hardly enough. There
is no corporal punishment. It is superseded
by set tasks to be learned out of school hours.
The most severe punishment for incorrigible
sinners is to be seated on a stool apart during
dinner. A glass of water and a slice of dry
bread are then placed before them, and a
picture which is terrible to look upon— a
picture which must neither be spoken nor
dreamed of. It represents a donkey with
remarkably long ears, a pig grovelling in the
mire, and a dog conducting himself in a highly
improper manner. The young offender may
contemplate these things at leisure, and they
are said to have a most salutary influence. I
asked if it were well to keep a boy without his
accustomed food; and was glad when the
teacher smiled pleasantly, and said that his
dinner was always given to him when the
punishment was over.

I was assured by one of the eleven masters,
who was so obliging as to be my guide,
that the ardour of the boys, in endeavouring