morous incidents into extravagance, the author should have resisted the license, except only in the present instance. The appeal to the too veracious mehmandar is utterly destructive of Hajji Baba's tender hopes; and the moon faced Bessy Hogg, instead of being made a princess after the desire of our Persian secretary, or the "lady" of a young long-spurred hussar officer, after her own inclinations, becomes the wife of a wealthy grocer, and her Oriental admirer is a resigned witness of the ceremony which, we doubt not, to her great ultimate comfort and satisfaction, makes her Mrs Figby.

The departure of the embassy, with all the preparatory bustle, and above all, the settlement of long bills which it involves, is described with the truth and spirit which characterise this lively work, and of which we have given so many instances. Hajji Baba returns safely to Persia. The wonders which he saw at the court of Britain he narrated before the throne of the Shah; was invested with a dress of honour; and dismissed from the royal presence with his head, like that of Horace, knocking against every star in the zodiac.

Before laying aside these two volumes, we cannot resist the temptation to turn back for a moment to the travels of Abou Taleb (reviewed in our 8th number), which are the production of a bona fide Mussulman. The advantage, of course, remains infinitely on the side of the work written to amuse, over that which was composed for the purpose of instruction. Such ludicrous errors as Hajji cherishes and records, his real prototype, when he fell into any of them, took especial care to conceal; giving us only the result of what he learned from matured consideration and experience. Abou Taleb deals, therefore, in matter of fact, and is most prosaic exactly where the secretary of the Persian embassy is most lively, imaginative, and absurd. It is odd that, though both works bear the marked impress of Oriental composition, they hardly evince an idea in common with each other, excepting that the authors show the same holy scruple at employing a brush composed of hog's bristles for the purposes of the bath. There is one political plan for the settlement of our national debt, which Abou Taleb does us the favour to suggest, and which in the Hajji's hand could not have failed to make a grand figure. Nothing could be more easy, he imagines, than to assemble the creditors of government in the presence of parliament, and inform them in plain language that they must instantly enter into a compromise, and agree to be contented with receiving a certain proportion of their debt. We have only to observe, that the remedy seems to us to stop halfway; and that if the "Light of the Universe," or any other Oriental monarch had a parcel of troublesome creditors assembled in the Atmeidan, before the "refuge of the world," or whatever his palace might be called, he would probably make them glad to com

up a few nasakchies around the congregation. How the remedy would work in Europe-under favour of the learned Oriental physician-the wise may make some drachm of a scruple.

Another work of considerable merit, belonging to the same class of composition, has attracted our favourable notice, though we are at present compelled to introduce it only in a very summary way. It is called the "Kuzzilbash," that is, the "Redcap," by which is meant the Persian soldier, so named from the distinguishing part of his attire. This Oriental romance, for such it must be termed, displays an accurate and intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs, as well as the history of Persia. The power of description displayed in it, so far at least as external circumstances are concerned, is of a most rich and picturesque character. The author's pictures of natural scenery in the East, show an eye familiar with its beauties and its terrors; and indicate, we are tempted to think, no ordinary acquaintance with the art of the draughtsman. The following description of what had once been an ornamented garden, but was become a place of rendez-vous for a marauding tribe of Turcomans, might be easily transferred to canvass as a counterpart to Goldsmith's Auburn:

A

“Just upon the edge of the bank, the little stream, after filling a canal. had been trained to fall over an artificial cascade of stone, the sides of which had been adorned with ornaments of the same; but the canal was almost obliterated, and the stone over which the water rushed was broken, and had fallen in such a manner as to confine the stream still more. rade spout of stone had been placed so as to collect it in the basin below, and to enable the women to fill their water-vessels more easily. A huge old sycamore-tree, once the chief ornament of the garden, grew on one side and overshadowed the basin; and a vine, which had rooted itself among the broken stones, formed a still closer covering, protecting the water from the rays of the sun, so as to render it always cool and refreshing. It was a delicious spot, and had become the favourite rendez-vous of the whole aoul: the women came morning and evening to fill their water-skins; the elders of the men met to smoke their calleeoons under the shade, and the youths to talk over their exploits performed or anticipated, to play at games of chance, and listen to the tales of a Kissago, or to gossip with the women; the children sported below upon the green bank, or threw themselves into the sparkling waters of the little lake at its foot."-Vol. i. PP. 59.60.

The following sketch of a Persian cavalier has the richness and freshness of one of Heber's, or Morier's, or Sir John Malcolm's pages:

"He was a man of goodly stature, and powerful frame; his countenance, hard, strongly marked, and furnished with a thick black beard, bore testimony of exposure to many a blast, but it still preserved a prepossessing expression of good-humour and benevolence. His turban, which was formed of a cashmere shawl, sorely tached and torn, and twisted here and there with small steel chains, according to the fashion of the time, was wound around a red cloth сар, that rose in four peaks high above the head. His oemah, or riding coat, of crimson cloth, much stained and faded, opening at the bosom, showed the links of a coat-ofmail which he wore below; a yellow shawl formed his girdle; his huge shulwars, or riding trowsers, of thick fawn-coloured Kerman woolen stuff, fell in folds over the large red leather boots in which his legs were cased. By his side hung a crooked scymitar in a black leather scabbard, and from the holsters of his saddle peeped out the but-ends of a pair of pistols; weapons of which I then knew not the use, any more than of the matchlock which was slung at his back. He was mounted on a powerful but jaded horse, and appeared to have already travelled far."

Scenes of active life are painted by the author of the Kuzzilbash

displays in landscapes or single figures. In war, especially, he is at home; and gives the attack, the retreat, the rally, the bloody and desperate close combat, the flight, pursuit, and massacre, with all the current of a heady fight, as one who must have witnessed such terrors. We regret we have not space to give a farther extract; and still more that we cannot add to these just praises any compliment to the art with which the author has conducted the incidents of his story-which are, to say the least, very slightly put together, and frequently place out of perspective the hero and his affairs. The historical events are dwelt on so often, and at such length, that we lose interest for the Kuzzilbash, in tracing the career of Nadir and the revolutions of Persia. This is a sin which, we hope, the author will not cleave to, on further experience. We must also hint, that the moral characters of the agents whom he introduces, are not sufficiently discriminated to maintain much interest with the reader; they too much resemble the fortem Gyan fortemque Cloanthum. It may be answered, with plausibility, that people, trammelled by the dogmatic rules of a false religion, and the general pressure of an arbitrary government, are not apt to run into the individual varieties of character to be found in a free and Christian community. But a more close inspection of that great mass which preserves, at the first view, one dull appearance of universal resemblance, gives a great many differences both of a national, a professional, and an individual kind. While, then, we sincerely hope the author of the Kuzzilbash will resume the pen, we would venture to recommend that he commence on a more restricted canvass, and lend considerably more attention to the discrimination of his characters, and the combination of his story. In this case, with his stores of information and powers of language, we cannot help thinking he will secure public favour.

In the mean time, and with our recollection of the remarkable circumstance, that English literature has found an interest even in Persia, we feel disposed to nourish hopes that the taste may increase. Why may not European productions become, in time, as indispensable to the moral habits of a Persian, as a Chinese leaf to an European breakfast? Such expectations may appear extravagant to that sect of dampers who may be termed the Cui-bonists.-What would be the good consequence, they may ask, should Britain be able to introduce into Persia the whole trash which loads her own circulating libraries? We reply that these volumes of inanity, as Johnson would have termed them, are yet not more inane than the romances of the middle ages, which spread wide over Europe the system of chivalry, and thereby wrought a more powerful change on human manners than ever was produced by any one cause, the Christian religion alone excepted. "Let any one who lists," says a lively

pose their songs :" a similarity of books paves the way for a similarity of manners; and the veil of separation once rent, there is no saying how soon it may be altogether removed.

The possibility of a great change being introduced by very slight beginnings may be illustrated by the tale which Lockman tells of a vizier, who, having offended his master, was condemned to perpetual captivity in a lofty tower. At night his wife came to weep below his window. "Cease your grief," said the sage, "go home for the present, and return hither when you have procured a live black beetle, together with a little ghee (or buffalo's butter), three clews, one of the finest silk, another of stout packthread, and another of whipcord; finally, a stout coil of rope." When she again came to the foot of the tower, provided according to her husband's commands, he directed her to touch the head of the insect with a little of the ghee, to tie one end of the silk thread around him, and to place the reptile on the wall of the tower. Seduced by the smell of the butter, which he conceived to be in store somewhere above him, the beetle continued to ascend till he reached the top, and thus put the vizier in possession of the end of the silk thread, who drew up the packthread by means of the silk, the small cord by means of the packthread, and, by means of the cord, a stout rope capable of sustaining his own weight,-and so at last escaped from the place of his duresse

ARTICLE XIII.

TALES OF MY LANDLORD.*

Tales of my Landlord. 4 Vols. 12mo. Third Edition. Edinburgh: 1817.-From the Quarterly Review for Jan. 1817.]

THESE Tales belong obviously to a class of novels which we have already had occasion repeatedly to notice, and which have attracted the attention of the public in no common degree,-we mean "Waverley," "Guy Mannering," and the "Antiquary," and we have little

[It is to be inferred, from some expressions in Sir Walter Scott's correspondence and elsewhere, that the materials of this article were in part collected and arranged by his friend William Erskine, Lord Kinnedder; but the MS of the Essay, now in the possession of Mr Murray, entirely in the handwriting of Sir Walter himself. The article was prompted by the appearance of a series of essays in a religious magazine ("The Christian Instructor "), from the pen of the learned and venerable Dr Thomas M'Crie, † author of the "Life of Knox," &c., in which the Doctor bitterly impugned the views given of the Scotch Covenanters in the Waverley Novels.]

hesitation to pronounce them either entirely, or in a great measure, the work of the same author. Why he should industriously endeavour to elude observation by taking leave of us in one character, and then suddenly popping out upon us in another, we cannot pretend to guess without knowing more of his personal reasons for preserving so strict an incognito than has hitherto reached us. We can, however, conceive many reasons for a writer observing this sort of mystery; not to mention that it has certainly had its effect in keeping up the interest which his works have excited.

We do not know if the imagination of our author will sink in the opinion of the public when deprived of that degree of invention which we have been hitherto disposed to ascribe to him; but we are certain that it ought to increase the value of his portraits, that human beings have actually sate for them. These coincidences between fiction and reality are perhaps the very circumstances to which the success of these novels is in a great measure to be attributed: for, without depreciating the merit of the artist, every spectator at once recognises in those scenes and faces which are copied from nature an air of distinct reality, which is not attached to fancy-pieces, however happily conceived and elaborately executed. By what sort of freemasonry, if we may use the term, the mind arrives at this conviction, we do not pretend to guess, but every one must have felt that he instinctively and almost insensibly recognises in painting, poetry, or other works of imagination, that which is copied from existing nature, and that he forthwith clings to it with that kindred interest which thinks nothing which is human indifferent to humanity. Before, therefore, we proceed to analyze the work immediately before us, we beg leave briefly to notice a few circumstances connected with its predecessors.

Our author has told us it was his object to present a succession of scenes and characters connected with Scotland in its past and present state, and we must own that his stories are so slightly constructed as to remind us of the showman's thread with which he draws up his pictures and presents them successively to the eye of the spectator. He seems seriously to have proceeded on Mr Bayes's maxim -"What the deuce is a plot good for, but to bring in fine things?" -Probability and perspicuity of narrative are sacrificed with the utmost indifference to the desire of producing effect; and provided the author can but contrive to "surprise and elevate," he appears to think that he has done his duty to the public. Against this slovenly indifference we have already remonstrated, and we again enter our protest. It is in justice to the author himself that we do so, because, whatever merit individual scenes and passages may possess (and none have been more ready than ourselves to offer our applause), it is clear that their effect would be greatly enhanced by being dis