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[Footnote: Epirus and Acarnania, etc., to the north-west; Roumelia, Thebes, Attica, to the east; the Morea, or Peloponnesus, to the south-west; and the islands so widely dispersed in the Egean, had from position a separate interest over and above their common interest as members of a Christian confederacy. And in the absence of some great representative society, there was no voice commanding enough to merge the local interest in the universal one of Greece. The original (or Philomuse society), which adopted literature for its ostensible object, as a mask to its political designs, expired at Munich in 1807; but not before it had founded a successor more directly political. Hence arose a confusion, under which many of the crowned heads in Europe were judged uncharitably as dissemblers or as traitors to their engagements. They had subscribed to the first society; but they reasonably held that this did not pledge them to another, which, though inheriting the secret purposes of the first, no longer masked or disavowed them. ]

and, in some sense, a fictitious society of corresponding members, styling itself the Heteria. A more astonishing case of mighty effects prepared and carried on to their accomplishment by small means, magnifying their own extent through great zeal and infinite concealment, and artifices the most subtle, is not to be found in history. The secret tribunal of the middle ages is not to be compared with it for the depth and expansion of its combinations, or for the impenetrability of its masque. Nor is there in the whole annals of man a manoeuvre so admirable as that, by which this society, silently effecting its own transfiguration, and recasting as in a crucible its own form, organs, and most essential functions, contrived, by mere force of seasonable silence, or by the very pomp of mystery, to carry over from the first or innoxious model of the Heteria, to its new organization, all those weighty names of kings or princes who would not have given their sanction to any association having political objects, however artfully veiled. The early history of the Heteria is shrouded in the same mystery as the whole course of its political movements. Some suppose that Alexander Maurocordato, ex-Hospodar of Wallachia, during his long exile in Russia, founded it for the promotion of education, about the beginning of the present century. Others ascribe it originally to Riga. At all events, its purposes were purely intellectual in its earliest form. In 1815, in consequence chiefly of the disappointment which the Greeks met with in their dearest hopes from the Congress of Vienna, the Heteria first assumed a political character under the secret influence of Count Capodistria, of Corfu, who, having entered the Russian service as mere private secretary to Admiral Tchitchagoff, in 1812, had, in a space of three years, insinuated himself into the favor of the Czar, so far as to have become his private secretary, and a cabinet minister of Russia. He, however, still masked his final objects under plans of literature and scientific improvement. In deep shades he organized a vast apparatus of agents and apostles; and then retired behind the curtain to watch or to direct the working of his blind machine. It is an evidence of some latent nobility in the Greek character, in the midst of that levity with which all Europe taxes it, that never, except once, were the secrets of the society betrayed; nor was there the least ground for jealousy offered either to the stupid Moslems, in the very centre of whom, and round about them, the conspiracy was daily advancing, or even to the rigorous police of Moscow, where the Heteria had its head-quarters. In the single instance of treachery which occurred, it happened that the Zantiote, who made the discovery to Ali Pacha on a motion of revenge, was himself too slenderly and too vaguely acquainted with the final purposes of the Heteria for effectual mischief, having been fortunately admitted only to its lowest degree of initiation; so that all passed off without injury to the cause, or even personally to any of its supporters. There were, in fact, five degrees in the Heteria. A candidate of the lowest class (styled Adelphoi, or brothers), after a minute examination of his past life and connections, and after taking a dreadful oath, under impressive circumstances, to be faithful in all respects to the society and his afflicted country, and even to assassinate his nearest and dearest relation, if detected in treachery, was instructed only in the general fact that a design was on foot to ameliorate the condition of Greece. The next degree of Systimenoi, or bachelors, who were selected with more anxious discrimination, were informed that this design was to move towards its object by means of a revolution. The third class, called Priests of Eleusis, were chosen from the aristocracy; and to them it was made known that this revolution was near at hand; and, also, that there were in the society higher ranks than their own. The fourth class was that of the prelates; and to this order, which never exceeded the number of one hundred and sixteen, and comprehended the leading men of the nation, the most unreserved information was given upon all the secrets of the Heteria; after which they were severally appointed to a particular district, as superintendent of its interests, and as manager of the whole correspondence on its concerns with the Grand Arch. This, the crowning order and key-stone of the society, was reputed to comprehend sixteen “mysterious and illustrious names,” amongst which were obscurely whispered those of the Czar, the Crown Prince of Bavaria and of Wurtemburg, of the Hospodar of Wallachia, of Count Capodistria, and some others. The orders of the Grand Arch were written in cipher, and bore a seal having in sixteen compartments the same number of initial letters. The revenue which it commanded must have been considerable; for the lowest member, on his noviciate, was expected to give at least fifty piastres (at this time about two pounds sterling); and those of the higher degrees gave from three hundred to one thousand each. The members communicated with each other, in mixed society, by masonic signs.