ticularly sepoys, are, when put a fittle out of their and occurrences; the price of passage in the boat usual way. On going to the place where my es- was only a few cowries; but a number of country cort was hutted, I found that ther was not room for folk were assembled, who could not, or would not them all under its snelter, and that four were pre-pay, and were now sitting patiently by the brink, paring to sleep on the open field. Within a hun-waiting till the torrent should subside, or, what was dred yards stood another similar hut unoccupied, a far less likely to happen, till the boatmen should little out of repair, but tolerably tenantable. Why take compassion on them. Many of these pour do you not go thither?' was my question. We people came up to beg me to make the boarmer like to sleep altogether,' was their answer. 'But take them over, one woman pleading that her why not bring the branches here, and make your malik our bucher,' (literally master, or lord, and own hut larger? see, I will show you the way.' young one) had run away from her, and she wanted They started up immediately in great apparent de- to overtake them; another that she and her two light; every man brought a bough, and the work grandchildren were following her son, who was a was done in five minutes-being only interrupted Havildar in the regiment which we had passed just every now and then by exclamations of Good, before; and some others, that they had been intergood, poor man's provider!'' cepted the previous day by this torrent, and had "A little before five in the morning, the servants neither money nor food till they had reached ther came to me for directions, and to say that the good homes. Four anas purchased a passage for the careful old Soubahdar was very.ill, and unable to whole crowd, of perhaps thirty people, and they leave his tent. I immediately put on my clothes were really very thankful. I bestowed two a and went down to the camp, in my way to which more on the poor deserted woman, and a whimsies! they told me, that he had been taken unwell at scene ensued. She at first took the money wh night, and that Dr. Smith had given him medicine. eagerness, then, as if she recollected herself, she He opened a vein, and with much humane patience, blushed very deeply, and seemed much confused, continued to try different remedies while any chance then bowed herself to my feet, and kissed my hands, remained; but no blood flowed, and no sign of life and at last said, in a very modest tone, it was bet could be detected from the time of his coming up, fit for so great a man as I was, to give her two am, except a feeble flutter at the heart, which soon and she hoped that I and the 'chota Sahib,' (little ceased. He was at an advanced age, at least for lord) would give her a rupee each! She was an an Indian, though apparently hale and robust. I extremely pretty little woman, but we were inexor felt it a comfort that I had not urged him to any ex-able; partly, I believe, in my own case at least, ertion, and that in fact I had endeavoured to persuade because we had only just rupees enough to take him to lie still till he was quite well. But I was to Cawnpoor, and to pay for our men's provisions; necessarily much shocked by the sudden end of one however, I gave her two more anas, my sole re who had travelled with me so far, and whose con- maining stock of small change." duct had, in every instance, given me satisfaction. Nor, while writing this, can I recollect without a real pang, his calm countenance and grey hairs, as he sate in his tent door, telling his beads in an afternoon, or walked with me, as he seldom failed to do, through the villages on an evening, with his own silver-hilted sabre under his arm, his loose cotton mantle folded round him, and his golden necklace and Rajpoot string just visible above it.

These few traits will do, we believe; but we must add a few more, to let the reader fully into the noble humanity and genuine softness of this man's heart.

"In the course of this evening a fellow, who said he was a gao-wala brought me two poor little leverets, which he said he had just found in a field They were quite unfit to eat, and bringing them was an act of cruelty of which there are few instances among the Hindoos, who are generally humane to wild animals. In this case, on my scold

"The death of the poor Soubahdar led to the question, whether there would be still time to send on the baggage. All the Mussulmans pressed our immediate departure; while the Hindoos begged that they might be allowed to stay, at least, tilling the man for bringing such poor little things from sunset. I determined on remaining, as, in my opinion, more decent and respectful to the memory of a good and aged officer."

"In the way, at Futtehgunge, I passed the tents pitched for the large party which were to return towards Cawnpoor next day, and I was much pleased and gratified by the Soubahdar and the greater number of the sepoys of my old escort running into he middle of the road to bid me another farewell, and again express their regret that they were not going on with me to the world's end.' 'They who talk of the ingratitude of the Indian character, should, I think. pay a little more attention to cases of this sort. These men neither got nor expected any thing by this little expression of good-will. If I had offered them money, they would have been bound, by the rules of the service, and their own dignity, not to take it. Sufficient civility and respect would have been paid if any of them who happened to be near the road had touched their caps, and I really can suppose them actuated by no motive but good-will. It had not been excited, so far as I know, by any particular desert on my part: but I had always spoken to them civilly, had paid some attention to their comforts in securing them tents, firewood, and camels for their knapsacks. and had ordered them a dinner, after their own fashion, on their arrival at Lucknow, at the expense of, I believe, not more than four rupees! Surely if good-will is to be bought by these sort of attentions, it is a pity that any body should neglect them."

"In crossing a nuddee, which from a ford had become a ferry, we saw some characteristic groups

their mother, all the crowd of camel-drivers and camp-followers, of whom no inconsiderable number were around us, expressed great satisfaction and an entire concurrence in my censure. It ended in the man promising to take them back to the very spot (which he described) where he had picked them and in my promising him an ana if he did so. Te see him keep his word two stout waggoner's boss immediately volunteered their services, and I bave no doubt kept him to his contract.

The same adviser wanted me to take off a joint of Câbul's tail, under the hair, so as not to injure his appearance. It was known,' he said, that by how much the tail was made shorter, so much the taller the horse grew.' I said I could not believe that God gave any animal a limb too much, or one which tended to its disadvantage, and that as He had made my horse, so he should remain. This speech, such as it was, seemed to chime in wonder. fully with the feelings of most of my hearers; and one old man said, that during all the twenty-two years that the English held the country, he had not heard so grave and godly a saying from any of them before. I thought of Sancho Panza and his wat apophthegms!

"Our elephants were receiving their drink ats well, and I gave the largest some bread, which, before my illness, I had often been in the habit of doing. He is glad to see you again,' observed the goomashta, and I certainly was much struck by the calm, clear, attentive, intelligent eye which he fixed on me, ooth while he was eating, and afterwards while I was patting his trunk and talking about him

He was, he said, a fine-tempered beast, but the two others were great rascals." One of them had once almost killed his keeper. I have got these poor beasts' allowance increased, in consideration of their long march; and that they may not be wronged, have ordered the mohout to give them all their gram in presence of a sentry. The gram is made up in cakes, about as large as the top of a hat-box, and baked on an earthen pot. Each contains a seer, and sixteen of them are considered as sufficient for one day's food for an elephant on a march. The suwarree elephant had only twelve, but I ordered him the full allowance, as well as an increase to the others. If they knew this, they would indeed be glad to see me."

castes, and to inculcate a signal toleration We can now afford, however, to give little more than the introductory narrative.

"About eleven o'clock I had the expected visit from Swaamee Narain, to my interview with whom I had looked forward with an anxiety and eagerness which, if he had known it, would perhaps have flattered him. He came in a somewhat different style from what I expected; having with him nea:ly two hundred horsemen, mostly well-armed with matchlocks and swords, and several of them with coats of mail and spears. Besides them he had a large rabble on foot, with bows and arrows; and when I considered that I had myself more than fifty horse, and fifty muskets and bayonets, I could not help smiling, though my sensations were in some degree painful and humiliating, at the idea of two religious teachers meeting at the head of little armies! and filling the city, which was the scene of their interview, with the rattling of quivers, the clash of shields, and the tramp of the war-horse. Had our troops been opposed to each other, mine, though less numerous, would have been doubtless far more effective, from the superiority of arms and discipline. But, in moral grandeur, what a difference was there between his troop and mine! Mine neither knew me nor cared for me. They escorted me faithfully, and would have defended me bravely, because they were ordered by their superiors to do so; and as they would have done for any other stranger of sufficient worldly rank to make such attendance usual. The guards of Swaamee Narain were his own disciples and enthusiastic admirers; men who had voluntarily repaired to hear his les sons, who now took a pride in doing him honour, and who would cheerfully fight to the last drop of blood rather than suffer a fringe of his garment to be handled roughly. In the parish of Hodnet there were once perhaps a few honest countrymen who felt something like this for me; but how long a time must elapse before any Christian teacher in India can hope to be thus loved and honoured!

"The morning was positively cold, and the whole scene, with the exercise of the march, the picturesque groups of men and animals round me,-the bracing air, the singing of birds, the light mist hanging on the trees, and the glistening dew, had some. thing at once so Oriental and so English, I have seldom found any thing better adapted to raise a man's animal spirits, and put him in good temper with himself and all the world. How I wish those I love were with me! How much my wife would enjoy this sort of life,-its exercise, its cleanliness, and purity; its constant occupation, and at the same time its comparative freedom from form, care, and vexation! At the same time a man who is curious in his eating had better not come here. Lamb and kid (and we get no other flesh) most people would Boon tire of. The only fowls which are attainable are as tough and lean as can be desired; and the milk and butter are generally seasoned with the never-failing condiments of Hindostan-smoke and soot. These, however, are matters to which it is not difficult to become reconciled; and all the more serious points of warmth, shade, cleanliness, air, and water, are at this season nowhere enjoyed better than in the spacious and well-contrived tents, the ample means of transport, the fine climate, and ferule regions of Northern Hindostan. Another time, by God's blessing, I will not be alone in this Eden; yet I confess that there are few people whom "After the usual mutual compliments, I said that I greatly wish to have as associates in such a jour- I had heard much good of him, and the good doc. ney. It is only a wife, or a friend so intimate as to trine which he preached among the poor people of be quite another self, whom one is really anxious to Guzerât, and that I greatly desired his acquaintbe with one while travelling through a new country." ance; that I regretted that I knew Hindostanee so imperfectly, but that I should be very glad, so far Instead of wishing, as we should have exas my knowledge of the language allowed, and by pected a Bishop to do, to move in the digni- the interpretation of friends, to learn what he be fied and conspicuous circle at the seat of lieved on religious matters, and to tell him what I Government, it is interesting to find this ex-myself believed; and that if he would come and see emplary person actually languishing for a I would have a tent pitched for him and treat him me at Kairah, where we should have more leisure, more retired and obscure situation. like a brother. I said this, because I was very earnestly desirous of getting him a copy of the Scriptures, of which I had none with me, in the Nagree character, and persuading him to read them; and because I had some further hopes of inducing him to go with me to Bombay, where I hoped that, by conciliatory treatment, and the conversations to which I might introduce him with the Church Missionary Society established in that neighbourhood, I might do him more good than I could otherwise hope.

"Do you know, dearest, that I sometimes think we should be more useful, and happier, if Cawnpour or Benares, not Calcutta, were our home My visitations would be made with far more convenience, the expense of house rent would be less to the Company, and our own expenses of living would be reduced very considerably. The air, even of Cawnpoor, is, I apprehend, better than that of Bengal, and that of Denares decidedly so. The greater part of my business with government may be done as well by letters as personal interviews; and, if the Archdeacon of Calcutta were resident there, it seems more natural that the Bishop of India should remain in the centre of his diocese.The only objection is the great number of Christians in Calcutta, and the consequent probability that my preaching is more useful there than it would be any where else. We may talk these points over when

we meet.

One of the most characteristic passages in the book, is the account of his interview with a learned and very liberal Brahmin in Guzeråt, whom he understood to teach a far purer morality than is usually enjoined by his brethren, and also to discountenance the distinction of

gave

"I saw that both he, and, still more, his disciples, were highly pleased by the invitation which I him; but he said, in reply, that his life was one of very little leisure; that he had five thousand disciples now attending on his preaching in the neighbouring villages, and nearly fifty thousand in different parts of Guzerât; that a great number of these were to assemble together in the course of next week, on occasion of his brother's son coming of age to receive the Brahminical string; but that if I staid long enough in the neighbourhood to allow him to get this engagement over, he would gladly come again to see me. In the meantime,' I said, 'have you any objection to communicate some part of came to do; and his disciples very visibly exuited your doctrine now?' It was evidently what he in the opportunity of his perhaps converting me.'

37

The conference is too long to extract, but it is very curious; though the result fell something short of what the worthy Bishop, in the zeal of his benevolence, had anticipated.-We should now leave the subject of the author's personal character; but it shines out so strongly in the account of the sudden death of one of his English friends and fellow-travellers, that we cannot refrain from gratifying our readers and ourselves with one other extract. Mr. Stowe, the individual alluded to, died after a short illness at Dacca. The day after his burial, the Bishop writes to his wife as follows:

“Sincerely as I have mourned, and do mourn him continually, the moment perhaps at which I felt his loss most keenly was on my return to this house. I had always after airings, or other short absences, been accustomed to run up immediately to his room to ask about his medicines and his nourishment, to find if he had wanted any thing during my absence, and to tell him what I had seen and heard. And now, as I went up stairs, I felt most painfully that the object of my solicitude was gone, and that there was nobody now to derive comfort or help from my coming, or whose eyes would faintly sparkle as I opened the door.

am only anxious to serve. In my dear Emily you will already have had a most affectionate and sea sible counsellor."

We dare not venture on any part, either of the descriptions of scenery and antiquities, or of the persons and presentations at the several native courts. But we have no hesitation in recommending them as by far the best and most interesting, in both sorts, that we have ever met with. The account of his journeyings and adventures in the mountain region at the foot of the Himalaya is peculiarly striking. from the affecting resemblance the author is continually tracing to the scenery of his be loved England, his more beloved Wales, or his most beloved Hodnet! Of the natives, in all their orders, he is a most indulgent and liberal judge, as well as a very exact observer He estimates their civilisation higher, we think, than any other traveller who has given. an account of them, and is very much strtek with the magnificence of their architecturethough very sceptical as to the high antiquity to which some of its finest specimens preter. We cannot afford to give any of the splendid and luminous descriptions in which the work abounds. In a private letter he says,—

"It will be long before I forget the guilelessness of his nature, the interest which he felt and expressed in all the beautiful and sequestered scenery "I had heard much of the airy and gaudy sn! which we passed through; his anxiety to be useful of Oriental architecture; a notion, I apprehend to me in any way which I could point out to him, taken from that of China only, since solidity, solem (he was indeed very useful,) and above all, the un-nity, and a richness of ornament, so well manager affected pleasure which he took in discussing religious subjects; his diligence in studying the Bible, and the fearless humanity with which he examined the case, and administered to the wants, of nine poor Hindoos, the crew of a salt-barge, whom, as I mentioned in my Journal, we found lying sick together of a jungle fever, unable to leave the place where they lay, and unaided by the neighbouring villagers. I then little thought how soon he in his turn would require the aid he gave so cheerfully."

On the day after, he writes in these terms to Miss Stowe, the sister of his departed friend :

as not to interfere with solemnity, are the charac teristics of all the ancient buildings which I have met with in this country. I recollect no correspond ing parts of Windsor at all equal to the entrance of the castle of Delhi and its marble hall of 20dience; and even Delhi fails very short of Agra in situation, in majesty of outline, in size, and the costliness and beauty of its apartments."

44

The following is a summary of his opinion of the people, which follows in the same letter Of the people, so far as their natural character is concerned, I have been led to form, on the whole, a very favourable opinion. They have, unhappily, many of the vices arising from slavery, from an unsettled state of society, and immoral and erroneous systems of religion. But they are men of high and gallant courage, courteous, intelligent, and most eager after knowledge and improvement, with a re

try, astronomy, &c., and for the imitative arts, painting and sculpture. They are sober, industrious, dutiful to their parents, and affectionate to their children, of tempers almost uniformly gentle and patient, and more easily affected by kindness and attention to their wants and feelings than almost any men whom I have met with. Their fauls seem to arise from the hateful superstitions to which they are subject, and the unfavourable state of society in which they are placed.

"With a heavy heart, my dear Miss Stowe, I send you the enclosed keys. How to offer you consolation in your present grief, I know not; for by my own deep sense of the loss of an excellent friend, I know how much heavier must be your burden. Separation of one kind or another is, in-markable aptitude for the abstract sciences, geome deed, one of the most frequent trials to which affectionate hearts are exposed. And if you can only regard your brother as removed for his own advantage to a distant country, you will find, perhaps, some of that misery alleviated under which you are now suffering. Had you remained in England when he came out hither, you would have been, for a time, divided no less effectually than you are now. The difference of hearing from him is almost all; and though you now have not that comfort, yet even without hearing from him you may be well persuaded (which there you could not always have been) that he is well and happy; and, above all, you may be persuaded, as your dear brother was most fully in his time of severest suffering, that God never smites his children in vain, or out of cruelty.

“So long as you choose to remain with us, we will be, to our power, a sister and a brother to you. And it may be worth your consideration whether, in your present state of health and spirits, a journey, in my wife's society, will not be better for you than a dreary voyage home. But this is a point on which you must decide for yourself; I would scarcely venture to advise, far less dictate, where

"More has been done, and more successfully, to obviate these evils in the Presidency of Bombay, than in any part of India which I have yet visited, through the wise and liberal policy of Mr. Elphin stone; to whom this side of the Peninsula is also indebted for some very important and efficient improvements in the administration of justice, and who, both in amiable temper and manners, ex'ensive and various information, acute good sense, energy, and application to business, is one of the most extraordinary men, as he is quite the most popular governor, that I have fallen in with."

The following is also very important; and

more new and valuable information

sent to the pictures of depravity and general worth lessness which some have drawn of the Hindoos. They are decidedly, by nature, a mild, pleasing, and intelligent race; sober, parsimonious, and, where an object is held out to them, most industrious and persevering. But the magistrates and lawyers all agree that in no country are lying and perjury so common, and so little regarded; and notwithstanding the apparent mildness of their manners, the criminal calendar is generally as full as in Ireland, with gang-robberies, setting fire to buildings, stacks, &c.; and the number of children who are decoyed aside and murdered, for the sake of their ornaments, Lord Amherst assures me, is dreadful."

We may add the following direct testimony on a point of some little curiosity, which has been alternately denied and exaggerated :

"At Broach is one of those remarkable institu

"Of the people of this country, and the manner in which they are governed, I have, as yet, hardly seen enough to form an opinion. I have seen enough, however, to find that the customs, the habits, and prejudices of the former are much misunderstood in England. We have all heard, for instance, of the humanity of the Hindoos towards brute creatures, their horror of animal food, &c.; and you may be, perhaps, as much surprised as I was, to find that those who can afford it are hardly less carnivorous than ourselves; that even the purest Brahmins are allowed to eat mutton and venison; that fish is permitted to many castes, and pork to many others; and that, though they consider it a grievous crime to kill a cow or bullock for the purpose of eating, yet they treat their draft oxen, no less than their horses, with a degree of barbarous severity which would turn an English tions which have made a good deal of noise in Euhackney coachman sick. Nor have their religious rope, as instances of Hindoo benevolence to inferior prejudices, and the unchangeableness of their habits, animals. I mean hospitals for sick and infirm been less exaggerated. Some of the best informed beasts, birds, and insects. I was not able to visit of their nation, with whom I have conversed, assure it; but Mr. Corsellis described it as a very dirty me that half their most remarkable customs of civil and neglected place, which, though it has considerand domestic life are borrowed from their Mahomable endowments in land, only serves to enrich medan conquerors; and at present there is an ob- the Brahmins who manage it. They have really vious and increasing disposition to imitate the Eng- animals of several different kinds there, not only ush in every thing, which has already led to very those which are accounted sacred by the Hindoos, remarkable changes, and will, probably, to still as monkeys, peacocks, &c., but horses, dogs, and ore important. The wealthy natives now all cats; and they have also, in little boxes, an assortaffect to have their houses decorated with Corin- ment of lice and fleas! It is not true, however, thian pillars, and filled with English furniture. They that they feed those pensioners on the flesh of begdrive the best horses and the most dashing carriages gars hired for the purpose. The Brahmins say that in Calcutta. Many of them speak English fluently, these insects, as well as the other inmates of their and are tolerably read in English literature; and infirmary, are fed with vegetables only, such as the children of one of our friends I saw one day rice, &c. How the insects thrive, I did not hear; dressed in jackets and trousers, with round hats, but the old horses and dogs, nay the peacocks and ehoes and stockings. In the Bengalee newspapers, apes, are allowed to starve; and the only creatures of which there are two or three, politics are cansaid to be in any tolerable plight are some mich vassed, with a bias, as I am told, inclining to Whig. cows, which may be kept from other motives than gism; and one of their leading men gave a great charity." dinner not long since in honour of the Spanish Revoution. Among the lower orders the same feeling shows itself more beneficially, in a growing neg. lect of caste-in not merely a willingness, but an anxiety, to send their children to our schools, and a desire to learn and speak English, which, if properly encouraged, might, I verily believe, in fifty years' time, make our language what the Oordoo, or court and camp language of the country (the Hindostance), is at present. And though instances of actual conversion to Christianity are, as yet, very uncommon, yet the number of children, both male and female, who are now receiving a sort of Christian education, reading the New Testament, repeating the Lord's Prayer and Commandments, and all with the consent, or at least without the censure, of their parents or spiritual guides, have increased, during the last two years, to an amount which astonishes the old European residents, who were used to tremble at the name of a Missionary, and shrink from the common duties of Christianity, lest they should give offence to their heathen neighbours. So far from that being a consequence of the zeal which has been lately shown, many of the Brahmins themselves express admiration of the morality of the Gospel, and profess to entertain a better opinion of the English since they have found that they too have a religion and a Shaster. All that seems necessary for the best effects to follow is, to let things take their course; to make the Missionaries discreet; to keep the government as it now is, strictly neuter; and to place our confidence in a general diffusion of knowledge, and in making ourselves really useful to the temporal as well as spiritual interests of the people among whom we live.

He adds afterwards,

"I have not been led to believe that our Government is generally popular, or advancing towards popularity. It is, perhaps, impossible that we should be so in any great degree; yet I really think there are some causes of discontent which it is in our own power, and which it is our duty to remove or diminish. One of these is the distance and haughtiness with which a very large proportion of the civil and military servants of the Company treat the upper and middling class of natives. Against their mixing much with us in society, there are certainly many hindrances; though even their objec tion to eating with us might, so far as the Mussul mans are concerned, I think, be conquered by any popular man in the upper provinces, who made the attempt in a right way. But there are some of our amusements, such as private theatrical entertain ments and the sports of the field, in which they would be delighted to share, and invitations to which would be regarded by them as extremely flattering, if they were not, perhaps with some reason, voted bores, and treated accordingly. The French, under Perron and Des Boignes, who in more serious matters left a very bad name behind them, had, in thie particular, a great advantage over us; and the easy and friendly intercourse in which they lived with natives of rank, is still often regretted in Agra and the Dooab. This is not all, however. The foolish pride of the English absolutely leads them to set at nought the injunctions of their own Government. The Tussildars, for instance, or principal active officers of revenue, ought, by an order of council, to have chairs always offered them in the presence of their European superiors; and the same, by the "In all these points there is, indeed, great room standing orders of the army, should be done to the for improvement: But I do not by any means as-Soubahdars. Yet there are hardly six collectors in

India who observe the former etiquette: and the latter, which was fifteen years ago never om ted in the army, is now completely in disuse. At the same time, the regulations of which I speak are known to every Tussildar and Soubahdar in India, and they feel themselves aggrieved every time these civilities are neglected."

Of the state of the Schools, and of Education in general, he speaks rather favourably; and is very desirous that, without any direct attempt at conversion, the youth should be generally exposed to the humanising influence of the New Testament morality, by the general introduction of that holy book, as a lesson book in the schools; a matter to which he states positively that the natives, and even their Brahminical pastors, have no sort of objection. Talking of a female school, lately established at Calcutta, under the charge of a very pious and discreet lady, he observes, that "Rhadacant Deb, one of the wealthiest natives in Calcutta, and regarded as the most austere and orthodox of the worshippers of the Ganges, bade, some time since, her pupils go on and prosper; and added, that if they practised the Sermon on the Mount as well as they repeated it, he would choose all the handmaids for his daughters, and his wives, from the English school."""

tion of Justice; especially in the local or district courts, called Adawlut, which the costli ness and intricacy of the proceedings, and the needless introduction of the Persian language have made sources of great practical oppres sion, and objects of general execration through out the country. At the Bombay Presidency Mr. Elphinstone has discarded the Persian, and appointed every thing to be done in the ordinary language of the place.

And here we are afraid we must take leave of this most instructive and delightful publication; which we confidently recommend to our readers, not only as more likely to amuse them than any book of travels with which we are acquainted, but as calculated to enlighten their understandings, and to touch their hearts with a purer flame than they generally catch from most professed works of philosophy or devotion. It sets before us, in every page, the most engaging example of devotion to God and good-will to man; and, touching every object with the light of a clear judgment and a pure heart, exhibits the rare spectacle of a work written by a priest upon religious creeds and establishments, without a shade of intolerance; and bringing under review the characters of a vast multitude of eminent individuals, without one trait either of sarcasm

He is far less satisfied with the administra- or adulation.

(October, 1824.)

1. Sketches of India. Written by an OFFICER, for Fire-Side Travellers at Home. Second Edition, with Alterations. 8vo. pp. 358. London: 1824. 2. Scenes and Impressions in Egypt and Italy. By the Author of Sketches of India, and

Recollections of the Peninsula. 8vo. pp. 452. London: 1824.

THESE are very amiable books:-and, be- them, will be more generally agreeable than sides the good sentiments they contain, they a digest of the information they might have are very pleasing specimens of a sort of travel-acquired. We would by no means undervalue writing, to which we have often regretted the researches of more learned and laborious that so few of those who roam loose about the world will now condescend-we mean a brief and simple notice of what a person of ordinary information and common sensibility may see and feel in passing through a new country, which he visits without any learned preparatic ad traverses without any particular object. There are individuals, no doubt, who travel to better purpose, and collect more weighty information-exploring, and recording as they go, according to their several habits and measures of learning, the mineralogy antiquities, or statistics of the different regions they survey. But the greater part, even of intelligent wanderers, are neither so ambitious in their designs, nor so industrious in their execution;-and, as most of those who travel for pleasure, and find pleasure in travelling, are found to decline those tasks, which might enrol them among the contributors to science, while they turned all their movements into occasions of laborious study, It seems reasonable to think that a lively and succinct account of what actually delighted

persons, especially in countries rarely visited: But, for common readers, their discussions require too much previous knowledge, and too painful an effort of attention. They are not books of travels, in short, but works of science and philosophy; and as the principal delight of travelling consists in the impressions which we receive, almost passively, from the presentment of new objects, and the reflec tions to which they spontaneously give rise, so the most delightful books of travels should be those that give us back those impressions in their first freshness and simplicity, and excite us to follow out the train of feelings and reflection into which they lead us, by the di rect and unpretending manner in which they are suggested. By aiming too ambitiously at instruction and research, this charm is lost, and we often close these copious dissertations and details, needlessly digested in the form of a journal, without having the least idea how we, or any other ordinary person, would have felt as companions of the journey-thoroughly convinced, certainly, that we should