terized, I believe with fidelity, the habits and modes of thinking of a Persian statesman, and added an amusing document to the annals of diplomacy. The conferences of the plenipotentiaries were carried on at times with the warmest contentions, at other times interrupted by the loudest langhter on the most indifferent subject. One night the parties had sat so long, and had talked so much without producing conviction on either side, that the plenipotentiaries by a sort of un-official compact, fell asleep. The prime minister and the Ameen-ed-Dowlah snored aloud in one place, and the envoy and I stretched ourselves along in another. Though on the very first night of the discussion, the parties had separated with a full conviction that every thing was settled; and though the prime minister himself, laying his hand on the envoy's shoulder, had said to him, "you have already completed what the king of England himself in person could not have done;" yet the very next conference, they came forwards with pretensions alike new and extravagant. At the close of that meeting however, the chief secretary was appointed to bring the treaty written fair to the envoy on the following morning. Instead of this, the prime minister sent a large citron, and inquired after the envoy's health. On another occasion, the Persian plenipotentiaries swore that every thing should be as the envoy wished, and instantly wrote out a corresponding form of treaty, to which (rather than start a difficulty about indifferent words) he assented. They were then so anxious that he should immediately attend them to the king's summer palace to sign, that they would not give him time to translate it into English: he however refused to sign a Persian treaty, till the English copy was ready. They so little expected this refusal, that they had already, by the king's desire, sent thirty mule-loads of fruits, sherbets, and sweetmeats to celebrate the event at the new palace; and were of course displeased and disappointed. At another time, in the middle of a very serious conversation, the prime minister stopped short, and asked the envoy very coolly to tell him the history of the world from the creation. This was intended as a joke upon one of the secretaries, who was then writing the annals of the reign of the present king. On another occasion, in which the same minister was deeply and personally interested, and in which he invoked every thing sacred to attest his veracity, and convince the envoy, (now, "by the head of the king;" then "by Mecca;" then, by the salt of FATH ALI SHAH") he turned to me in a pause of his discourse, and asked if I were married, and begun (began) some absurd story.' p.

198-200.

As soon as the treaty was signed, Mr. Morier was appointed by Sir Harford Jones to accompany the envoy extraordinary from the court of Persia to England. This -gave him an opportunity of continuing the very interesting

journey which he had begun at Bushire on the Persian Gulf, through the heart of the kingdom of Persia, by Armenia and Asia Minor, as far as Constantinople. Part of it may be considered as new ground in European description; and even that which has before been trodden over, is not so well known as to depretiate, in any degree the remarks of so observant a traveller as our author. As far as we can judge of Mr. M. from his book, he appears to be admirably qualified for the station which he fills. He possesses spirit, activity and intelligence, together with an eager desire of acquiring information, and taste and judgment in directing his attention to the most deserving objects. What we further admire in him, is the manliness of his character. He is patient under the inconveniences of new habits, and extraordinary privations. We hear from him no whinings about scanty food and bad accommodations; no disgusting egotisms; no exaggerated representations of imaginary dangers, and no affectedly modest exhibitions of romantic bravery. If there be any thing which we rather dislike, it is the too frequent indulgence in what, in a more puritanical age than the present, would be called devout breathings, or pious ejaculations. Some of these, however, are pleasant enough.

Throughout the whole tract, indeed (he says, p. 263), every thing was in life and spring. The animals felt the influence of the season; and our horses in passing the herds around were scarcely manageable. One threw his rider, and after having given him a bite on the shoulder attacked his fellows, and fought with some fury.' Mr. M. next describes the joy of the larks, and thus concludes: the whole creation seemed to give praise to its great creator.' p. 263.

We do not learn whether this religious turn, which Mr. M. displays rather too ostentatiously, was an habit previ ously established, or whether it originated from the cir cumstance of his having been appointed by the envoy to officiate as chaplain to the mission. We should indeed have thought it very natural, even if we had not been told of this appointment, that English gentlemen, in a distant country, would occasionally have felt pleasure in reverting to national customs, and celebrating divine service according to the rites of the established church. But we are more than half inclined to believe, that the mission, in many of the instances here recorded, were not actuated altogether by the purest motives; and that all this parade of devotion was assumed only for the purpose of astonishing the weak minds of the natives. Mr. Morier observes, p. 47. that, G2

⚫nothing excites a better impression of our character than an appearance of devotion and religious observance. If, therefore, there were no higher obligation on every christian, religious observances are indispensable in producing a national influence. We never omitted to perform divine service on Sundays; suffered no one to intrude upon us during our devotions; and used every means in our power to impress the natives with a proper idea of the sanctity of our Sabbath.'

Perhaps, however, all this may be very much to the taste of a certain class of readers. But who will be found to admire, or even to tolerate, the following instance of pious fraud, or to characterize it more properly, of egregious folly?

All our arrangements were closed; and on the same morning, at a quarter past eleven o'clock, the envoy mounted his horse to proceed from Bushire. In order to excite in the people a favourable expectation of the result of the mission, he had previously desired the astrologers to mention the time which they might deem lucky for his departure; and the hour accordingly in which we begun (began) our journey was pronounced by their authority to be particularly fortunate. p. 69.

After this, who among us, will dare to pronounce Bonaparte a Mussulman, on account of his having conformed, in like manner, though from motives of urgent political necessity, to the prejudices of the Egyptians? We, however, have little to do with Mr. Morier in his diplomatic, or in his clerical character. Our business with him is as an author; and here, as a preliminary measure, we feel it necessary to unburthen our minds of certain suspicions which have suggested themselves to us during our examination of his book. His pretensions are very great indeed: be assumes the scholar in almost every department of literature and science. Now we cannot admit that he acquired his knowledge by intuition; neither does it seem to be the natural fruit of an education finished at an early age at a commercial academy, nor of a subsequent apprenticeship in a merchant's counting-house at Smyrna, where, as we have been informed, "faineantise' usurps every moment of relaxation from business. In his preface indeed Mr. Morier expresses his gratitude to Mr. Robert Harry Inglis for the kindness with which he offered to correct and arrange his memoranda, and prepare his journals for the press. But even this acknowledgment, and the avowal of the editor himself, that he is further responsible for several additions of his own, do not give, as we apprehend, a just idea of the nature or the extent of the editor's contributions. We are certain, for instance, that Mr. Morier did not write the

following passage, which we extract from p. 104. At the foot of the cupola, in Persian characters, are verses from the Koran and invocations to the prophet;' because Mr. Morier could not have been ignorant, that the language of the Koran is Arabic, and that translations from it are seldom used by Mahometans, and never in public inscriptions. Mr. M. therefore could not have committed the inaccuracy of mentioning Persian characters when describing an Arabic sentence. Nor indeed is there any meaning in the expression; for the modern Persians have borrowed the letters of the Arabic alphabet, and have no characters of their own. It is just as though a traveller in Italy, in describing an ancient Roman inscription, were to note in his journal that it was written in English characters. We cannot help thinking too that such a word as monotonous' would never have obtruded itself on the actual spectator of the landscape described in p. 334.

The whole country through which we passed, presented the luxuries of a garden, with the grandeur of a forest. Flowers of all hues embellished the slopes of the rich pasturage, and embalmed the air with their aromatic odours. I never saw spring so luxuriant, so exuberant, as it was in these regions. At the bottom of every valley invariably runs a stream, the progress of which is marked by the trees and by the fertility which borders it, and which accompanies it in all its windings. The soil is of a fine red earth, and when occasionally turned up by the plough, breaks the monotony of the universal verdure that now covers the country, and contrasts admirably with the splendid brilliancy of its tints.'

We do not positively insist upon the infallibility of our conjecture in this instance, but if it be founded, all the worth of the description is done away: it is no longer the face of nature that is exhibited to us: and the picture, being destitute of reality, sinks to a level with the splendid scenery of a pantomime. It is, however, impossible for us, in every instance, to discriminate between the author and the editor: we must therefore content ourselves with making our remarks on the passages which have peculiarly arrested our attention, and leave to the gentlemen themselves the task of apportioning to each other their respective shares of commendation or censure. Mr. Morier is generally very fluent on the subject of architecture, but he leaves us in some doubt as to his real meaning when he talks of the architrave of an arched door, p. 144; or of • shafts of columns terminated on either side by a plinth and tores,' p. 355. As a mineralogist, he tells us of mines

of iron and brass discovered in Aderbigian, p. 283. As a botanist, he says, that the bole, by which we understand the trunk of the chenar tree, is of a fine white and smooth bark, p. 299; and he further informs us, that the snow lay in several places on the tops of some mountains which he passed, while close to it rose every flower,' and that he actually culled from them nosegays of a thousand hues, p. 316, which is quite impossible, unless the effects of frost and snow be very different in Armenia from what they are in England. At first we were inclined to give Mr. Morier great credit for his antiquarian knowledge, till we found him mentioning a Greek inscription on the chest of a horse, the letters of which are about an inch in height and correspond in form with those of the latter empire,' p. 139, and omitting to copy the said inscription, though he took the trouble of drawing all the figures and describing the whole monument in words at full length. Mr. Morier (p. 77, note), feels himself a little angry with Herodotus, because he was led to suppose, on the authority of that author, that the skulls of Persians are soft and penetrable, whereas, on making the experiment, he never once found, that he could thrust his finger through the skull of a living Persian. The want of accuracy in the use of words borrowed from the Oriental languages, must, we apprehend, be chargeable on Mr. Morier alone-thus, for instance, in p. 96, selam alek, which is Arabic, is said to answer to the khosh gueldin of the Turks; but the latter signifies literally welcome,' and the other, as literally, peace be with you.' In p. 212, the King of Persia makes a comparison between the gentlemen of the French and English missions :- the French,' he said,' were haivans, beasts, wild men, savages: these are gentlemen.' But his majesty ought to know, that the substantive haivan is not to be declined a l'angloise haivans; but that the regular plural of the word is haivat. We observe too, that Mr. Morier calls the running footmen chatters, though Chardin writes the word tchapar, and derives it from a Turkish participle which signifies galloping. Booysuroun, Mr. M. says, is the form of invitation of a host to his guest, and signifies 'you are served,' whereas its meaning is deign, condescend, be pleased, or do me the honour' to do such a thing. If these are peculiarly Mr. Morier's faults, it is, however, the fault of the editor to have inserted, or to have permitted to remain such a word as isolated, which he has done in twenty places, though it appears, from p. 212, that he is not unacquainted with the English word insulated;

6