He published Homeric Synchronisms in 1876 and was engaged on Retribution (the ...

He published Homeric Synchronisms in 1876 and was engaged on Retribution (the theme of the Bamtown Lectures for 1875). It is pleasant to find Professor Shewan, in his last volume of Homeric Essays, adhering to views first put forward by Mr Gladstone, long before Minos was revealed.

On the broadest view, it might be acknowledged that in maintaining the integrity of Turkey and negativing the Russian protectorate in 1855, England had assumed

a certain responsibility towards those

races who it pleased Palmerston to describe as the Nonconformists of Turkey.

In quiet times their position was probably not worse than that of the Irish Catholics in the eighteenth century, and Palmerston himself had drafted a plan of reform which would have given them such rights as Irish Catholics enjoyed after the Emancipation, or as had been promised to the people of India by the Queen's proclamation in 1857: toleration, equality before the law, access to all military and civil office.

But twenty years had made it clear that the Turk would never of his own accord accept or execute any plan or reform whatever. Always a ruler, he meant always to rule: to the sentiments and civilization of Europe he was indifferent: in its jealousies and divisions he was deeply versed.

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