interest

does not open upon some one of the many ing objects of nature and of art that spread beneath and beyond it, and were it possible to contain within it half of the beauty and glory it commands, its inmates need never suffer for want of pleasure and enjoyment.

The interior of the palace is finished in costly style. Some of the best artists in Germany are already at work, and the walls of its halls and apartments are beginning to glow with frescoes. The walls of the royal bed-rooms are enlivened with representations from classical scenes, while their ceiling is in imitation of the Grecian heavens, a device in no ways inappropriate when we recollect that the half of their majesties' subjects sleep under the canopy of the heavens. The walls of the council-hall and the royal library, are adorned with the busts of the Greek philosophers and the poets, while the first and second anterooms are decorated with medallion portraits of the modern Greek heroes and civilians. Colocotronis, Condoriotes, Ypsilanti and Karaiskaki, have already taken their places, and there are many in life and in history who are destined and who aspire to become the occupants of those which are still without their tenants. The walls of the great reception room are painted with representations of sieges and battles taken from the stirring events of the Greek revolution, all of which are executed with a truth and a spirit highly creditable to the taste and the genius of the artist. The only viola

tions of good taste are to be found just where they ought not to be, in her majesty's private rooms, and it is to be regretted that the artist should have been so sparing in the drapery of the Muses. This, however, is but an exception, and the little that is already finished gives good promise of the manner and the taste in which the work is to be executed. The paintings will offer to the modern Greeks an excellent school of taste and a national gallery, the more valuable as the portraits and the scenes that are scattered throughout belong to the history of the times and the country; the presence of such scenes will not fail to inspire the king and his subjects with something of that devotion and patriotism, of that daring courage, which led the storied heroes. to the field of battle and of glory.

CHAPTER V.

THE COURT OF GREECE, AND THE POLITICAL PARTIES.

THE Court of Otho extends beyond the walls of his palace; and, so numerous are its component parts, that, at first sight, it appears as if there were two officers for every citizen in the place. Besides those who are immediately attached to the royal household-the members of the synod, six or seven ministers of state, forty-six counsellors of the realm, and a host of civil and military officers -there is a formidable "corps diplomatique," and a no less formidable "corps consulaire," the former of which comprises four ministers plenipotentiary and envoys extraordinary, three resident ministers, and four charges d'affaires, and the latter, six consul generals, nine consuls, and vices without number.

The mere presence of so many diplomatists in so small a court as that of Greece, is sufficient to excite surprise, and we cannot but wonder at the reason which brought so many distinguished idlers into a country with which they must needs have but limited relations. But our wonder ceases when we come to the representatives of the three great

powers, who, having been instrumental in the formation of her government, and having lent her the means (60,000,000 francs) wherewith to be governed, they could not allow her to grow up without their fostering care, and what is more, without a political creed. It became necessary to provide their young ward, or, as they termed it," the infant state," with experienced "dadas," or nurses.

Hence it comes to pass that the ministers plenipotentiary of the Protecting Powers in the court of Greece, occupy a very different position from that which is occupied by the representatives of the same powers in the courts of independent nations; for, in addition to the privileges given them by the laws of nations, they enjoy here those which they have taken by right of treaties, in which none but the Allies were "the high contracting powers." It is in Greece alone where foreign representatives enjoy the paramount and extraordinary prerogative of interfering with the financial concerns of the nation; so far, at least, as to see "that the actual receipts of the Greek treasury shall be devoted, first of all, to the payment of the interest and the sinking fund of the sixty millions loan."

The right of interference, however, is not confined to any particular point; it extends over the whole state. In other courts, the accredited agents of friendly states, however distinguished for their virtues or titles, are, nevertheless, obliged to be a part and portion of society, and in their intercourse

with the people of the country, they necessarily associate with individuals who are their equals, if not in office and station, at least in all the little accidents of birth and fortune. But in Greece, where every thing is as yet in a state of hourly transition, there are few men of fortune, and fewer of those who, on account of their position in society, can claim by right an equality with their excellencies; and accordingly, instead of falling in with this or that circle, they form their own coteries, and give the law to society as they do to the state.

It would have been well for Greece, and equally well for the Allied Powers, if their agents were of a lower grade, and on a less expensive scale. Still, neither Greece nor any body else has the right of dictating to others the course they may please to pursue in matters of taste. But Greece, though small and poor, is nevertheless an independent state, and, whatever else she may have lost, she still enjoys the right of complaining against that policy of interference which has placed her resources, and consequently her laws and liberties, as completely in the hands of the foreign representatives as they were when at the disposal of the Turks.

It is not to be denied that the Greeks are as much to be blamed in this matter as those whose tools they are; at the same time it must not be forgotten that the interference of the Allied Powers is the