inisters. It consists,
or until the late financial difficulties deranged all the royal plans, it
consisted, of four Bavarians and two Greeks. Its duty is to prepare
projects of laws to be adopted by the different ministers, and to assist
the king in selecting individuals appointed to public offices. This is the
feature which excites the greatest indignation at Athens; the minister of
war does not dare to promote a corporal; the minister of public
instruction would tremble to send a village schoolmaster to a country
_demos_, even at the expense of the citizens; and the minister of finance
would not risk the responsibility of conferring the office of porter of
the customhouse at Parras, before receiving the royal instructions how to
act on such emergencies, and ascertaining what creature of the camarilla
it was necessary to provide for.

We have already mentioned the council of state; it consists of about
twenty individuals chosen by his majesty, a motley congregation--some
cannot read--others cannot write--some came to Greece after the revolution
was over--some, long after the king himself. This council is, by one of
the fictions of law so common in the Hellenic kingdom, supposed to form a
legislative council, and it is implied that it ought to be considered as
tantamount to a representative assembly. Some of its members are most
brave and respectable men, who have rendered Greece good service; but
since they were decked out in silver uniforms, and received large salaries
to form a portion of the court pageant, they have lost much of their
influence in the country, either for good or evil. The king looks upon
these patriotic members as an insignificant minority, or an ignorant
majority, as the case may be, and he has more than once set aside the
opposition of this council, by publishing laws rejected by a majority of
its members. To speak a plain truth in rude phrase--the council of state
is a farce.

King Otho, with his Greek ministers, his Bavarian cabinet, and his motley
council of state, is therefore, to all appearance, a more absolute
sovereign than his neighbour, Abdul Meschid. But we must now leave the
royal authority, and turn our attention to an important chapter in the
Greek question; one which nevertheless has not hitherto met with proper
study either from the king, his allies, or the public in Western
Europe--we mean the institutions of the Greek people.

The inhabitants of Greece consist of two classes, wh