shapeless mass of ruins;
everything returns rapidly to its former state." Thus it is that parts
of Palestine at present exhibit such desolate features to the traveller,
who wonders how it ever could have been the rich land described in
Scripture; till he finds that it was this sort of cultivation which made
it what it was, that this it was the Crusaders probably saw and imported
into Europe, and this that the ruthless Turks in great measure laid
waste.

Lastly, he speaks of the population of Italy; as to the towns, it has
declined on account of the new channels of commerce which nautical
discovery has opened, to the prejudice of the marts and ports of the
middle ages. In spite of this, however, he says, "that the provinces
have increased both in riches and inhabitants, and the population of
Italy was never, either in the days of the Emperors, or of the modern
Republics, so considerable as it is at the present moment. In the days
of Napoleon, it gave 1,237 to the square marine league, a density
greater than that of either France or England at that period. This
populousness of Italy," he adds, "is to be explained by the direction of
its capital to agricultural investment, and the increasing industry with
which, during a long course of centuries, its inhabitants have overcome
the sterility of nature."

Such is the contrast between Italy under its present governments and
Asia Minor under the Turks; and can we doubt at all, that, if the Turks
had conquered Italy, they would have caused the labours of the
agriculturist and the farmer to cease, and have reduced it to the level
of their present dominions?

FOOTNOTES:

[48] Vid. a beautiful passage in Cardinal Wiseman's late lecture at
Liverpool.

[49] Vid. Murray's Asia.

[50] Sir Charles Fellows.

[51] Vid. Smith and Dwight's Travels.

[52] Eclectic Review, Dec., 1839.

[53] Gibbon.

[54] Alison on Population, vol. i. p. 309, etc.

[55] Vol. i., p. 66, note.

[56] Alison, ch. xx., Sec. 28.

LECTURE VI.

_The Pope and the Turk._

1.

And now, having dwelt upon the broad contrast which exists between
Christendom and Turkey, I proceed to give you some general idea of the
Ottoman Turks, who are at present in power, as I have already sketched
the history of the Seljukian. We left off with the Crusaders victorious
in the Holy Land, and the Seljukian Sultan, the cousin of Malek Shah,
driven back from his capital over against Constantinople, to an obscu