able in resolution, inexorable
in execution, merciless in vengeance, by turns insolent, humble,
violent, or supple according to circumstances, always and entirely
logical in his egotism, he is Cesar Borgia reborn as a Mussulman; he is
the incarnate ideal of Florentine policy, the Italian prince converted
into a satrap.

Age had as yet in no way impaired Ali's strength and activity, and
nothing prevented his profiting by the advantages of his position.
Already possessing great riches, which every day he saw increasing
under his management, he maintained a large body of warlike and devoted
troops, he united the offices of Pacha of two tails of Janina,
of Toparch of Thessaly, and of Provost Marshal of the Highway. As
influential aids both to his reputation for general ability and the
terror of his arms, and his authority as ruler, there stood by his side
two sons, Mouktar and Veli, offspring of his wife Emineh, both fully
grown and carefully educated in the principles of their father.

Ali's first care, once master of Janina, was to annihilate the beys
forming the aristocracy of the place, whose hatred he was well aware
of, and whose plots he dreaded. He ruined them all, banishing many and
putting others to death. Knowing that he must make friends to supply
the vacancy caused by the destruction of his foes, he enriched with
the spoil the Albanian mountaineers in his pay, known by the name of
Skipetars, on whom he conferred most of the vacant employments. But much
too prudent to allow all the power to fall into the hands of a single
caste, although a foreign one to the capital, he, by a singular
innovation, added to and mixed with them an infusion of Orthodox Greeks,
a skilful but despised race, whose talents he could use without having
to dread their influence. While thus endeavouring on one side to destroy
the power of his enemies by depriving them of both authority and
wealth, and on the other to consolidate his own by establishing a firm
administration, he neglected no means of acquiring popularity. A fervent
disciple of Mahomet when among fanatic Mussulmans, a materialist with
the Bektagis who professed a rude pantheism, a Christian among the
Greeks, with whom he drank to the health of the Holy Virgin, he made
everywhere partisans by flattering the idea most in vogue. But if
he constantly changed both opinions and language when dealing with
subordinates whom it was desirable to win over, Ali towards his
superiors had