performers in this species of art. The Persian practitioners are nere described in the following terms:

The rope-dancer performed some feats, which really did credit to his profession. He first walked over his rope with his balancing pole, then vaulted on high; he ascended the rope to a tree in an angle of forty-five degrees: but, as he was reaching the very extremity of the upper range of the angle, he could proceed no further, and remained in an uncertain position for the space of two minutes. He afterwards tied his hands to a rope-ladder of three large steps; and, first balancing his body by the middle on the main line, let fall the ladder and himself, and was only brought up by the strength of his wrists thus fastened to their support. He next put on a pair of high-heeled shoes, and paraded about again; then put his feet into two saucepans, and walked backwards and forwards. After this he suspended himself by his feet from the rope, and, taking a gun, deliberately loaded and primed it, and, in that pendant position, took an aim at an egg (placed on the ground beneath him) and put his ball through it. After this he carried on his back a child, whom he contrived to suspend, with his own body besides, from the rope, and thence placed in safety on the ground. His feats were numerous: and, as he was mounted on a rope much more elevated than those on which such exploits are displayed in England, they were also proportionably dangerous. A trip would have been his inevitable destruction. He was dressed in a fantastical jacket, and wore a pair of breeches of crimson satin, something like those of Europeans. The boys danced, or rather paced the ground, snapping their fingers to keep time with the music, jingling their small brass castanets, and uttering extraordinary cries. To us all this was tiresome, but to the Persians it appeared very clever. One of the boys having exerted himself in various difficult leaps, at last took two kunjurs or daggers, one in each hand; and with these, springing forwards, and placing their points in the ground, turned himself head over heels between them; and again, in a second display, turned himself over with a drawn sword in his mouth.

'A negro appeared on the side of a basin of water (in which three fountains were already playing,) and, by a singular faculty which he possessed of secreting liquids, managed to make himself a sort of fourth fountain, by spouting water from his mouth. We closely observed him: he drank two basins and a quarter of water, each holding about four quarts, and he was five minutes spouting them out. Next came an eater of fire: this man brought a large dish full of charcoal, which he placed deliberately before him, and then, taking up the pieces, conveyed them bit by bit successively into his mouth, and threw them out again when the fire was extinguished. He then took a piece, from which he continued to blow the most brilliant sparks for more than half an hour. The trick consists in putting in the mouth some cottch

dipped in the oil of Naphtha, on which the pieces of charcoal are faid and from which they derive the strength of their fire: now the flame of this combustible is known to be little calid. Another man put into his mouth two balls alternately, which burnt with a brilliant flame, and which also were soaked in the same fluid.

The music was of the roughest kind. The performers were seated in a row round the basin of water; the band consisted of two men, who played the kamouncha, a species of violin; four, who beat the tamborin; one, who thrummed the guitar; one, who played on the spoons; and two who sung. The loudest in the concert were the songsters, who, when they applied the whole force of their lungs, drowned every other instrument. The man with the spoons seemed to me the most ingenious and least discordant of the whole band. He placed two wooden spoons in a neat and peculiar manner betwixt the fingers of his left hand, whilst he beat them with another spoon in his right.

All this continued till the twilight had fairly expired; when there commenced a display of fire-works on a larger scale than any that I recollect to have seen in Europe. In the first place, the director of the works caused to be thrown into the fountain before us a variety of fires, which were fixed on square flat boards, and which, bursting into the most splendid streams and stars of flame, seemed to put the water in one entire blaze. He then threw up some beautiful blue lights, and finished the whole by discharging immense vollies of rockets which had been fixed in stands, each of twenty rockets, in different parts of the garden, and particularly on the summits of the walls. Each stand exploded at once; and a one time the greater part of all the rockets were in the air at the same moment, and produced an effect grand beyond the powers of description.'

With the descriptive matter of this book of travels, the author does not very frequently adventure opinions on any subject which is out of the common tract; and the reserve seems to be prudent, since his occasional aberrations from this line are seldom fortunate. Thus, on the subject of bullion, though he informs us that the most perfect freedom prevails, both in the exportation and the importation of the precious metals; that 'every man may convert his bullion to any use; and if he wishes to have it coined, may send it to the mint to be struck into any piece of money, paying the value of a pea's weight of gold for every tomaun;' yet he thus reasons on the supposed treasures of the king:

'The king's treasure is reported, probably with much truth, to be immense. The Persians, indeed, affirm, that all the money which is received into the royal coffers, remains there and never again gets into circulation. In a country so poor as Persia, in which there are so few people of any capital, the absorption of a mil.

lion, or a much smaller sum, would be immediately felt. If, therefore, all the sums, which are annually poured into the king's treasure had remained a dead stock in his hands, there would not now have been a single piece of gold in Persia. There is no corresponding influx of bullion. Persia exports yearly three hundred and fifty thousand tomauns in specie to India; to meet this drain there is indeed an inadequate supply from their trade with Russia, which purchases with gold all the silk of Ghilan; and again with Turkey, which pays in gold for all the shawls and the little silk which it exports from Persia.'

The right inferences here lie so near the surface, that it is surprising to see them so egregiously missed by a man of the good sense which Mr. Morier possesses, however little he may be trained to philosophical thought. Could he not have reflected that, if any part of the circulating medium was withdrawn from the business of circulation, by confinement in the king's coffers, it would necessarily raise the value of that which remained in circulation, and consequently would afford an inducement to every man who had bullion to convert it into coin? If it were still withdrawn till bullion itself became scarce, the value of bullion would consequently be increased, and it would be the interest of somebody to import it. The nature of commodities, in general, wherever ingress and egress are free, is to leave the country in which they are cheap, and pass to that in which they are dear. The precious metals, of which the expense of carriage is small in proportion to their value, always follow this course, on comparatively minute variations; and whatever might be the quantity of gold and silver shut up in the king's coffers, the country would not stand deficient of one ounce of those metals which the state of its commodities and of its circulating medium might require. It is idle to tell us of no corresponding influx of bullion. There is no influx of air when no absorption takes place: but, if we produce the absorption, we may depend on the influx: or, if we produce on the other hand an accumulation, we may with equal certainty depend on an efflux. With regard to the treasure in the coffers of the king of Persia, instead of supposing it, with Mr. Morier, to be immense, we are perfectly satisfied that it is little or nothing: but we make this conclusion on reasons very different from those which lead Mr. Morier to reject its perpetual accumulation: our assurance arises from a knowledge of the difficulty of collecting such a treasure in Persia, and the facility of spending it; of the perpetual existence of such reports, and the perpetual discovery of their falsehood.

In confining our report of this volume to those features of it which more immediately form the national portraiture of Persia,

we have been obliged to pass over a great number of minute and incidental circumstances which much contribute to its variety and its interest. On the subject of monuments of ancient history and remains of ancient art, to which Mr. Morier occasionally attends with laudable diligence and curiosity (as particularly at Persepolis and Shapour) our boundaries now compel us to be silent; and the same cause restricts us from gratifying our readers with the author's biographical account (p. 220-223.) of Mirza Abul Hassan, the late Persian envoy to our court, whom he accompanied to England, and who excited much attention while in this country. The anecdotes also relative to this personage, during his passage to Europe, which Mr. M. has inserted in the Conclusion,' are amusing and informing. We recommend the remark of one of his attendants, on seeing the waltz danced at a ball given by the English ambassador at Constantinople, to the consideration of all lovers of that now fashionable whirl:-" Pray," said he, « does any thing ensue after all this?"

A number of plates greatly enrich and satisfactorily illus

trate this work.

De l'Esprit de Conquete, &c. i. e. On the spirit of Conquest and Usurpation, viewed in connexion with the present state of civilisation in Europe. By Benjamin de Constant Rebecque, formerly member of the tribunate, but removed from his seat (elimine) in 1802; and correspondent of the royal society of sciences at Gottingen.

[From the Monthly Review.]

Ir appears, from a notice in the preface, that this treatise is only a part of an extensive work on politics which was prepared several years ago, but withholden from the public in consequence of the fettered condition of the continental press. The recent revolution in politics has fortunately removed this formidable obstacle, and put it in the power of every writer to contribute to general utility in the full proportion of his zeal and information. In the opinion, however, of this author, the time is not yet come for the examination of abstract questions on the principles of politics; a consideration which has induced him to narrow the scope of his reasoning, and to confine his present investigations to topics of immediate interest.

M. de Constant is one of the few who aim at great precision in the division and subdivision of their materials, since he has arranged a tract which scarcely exceeds the pamphlet size into thirty-five chapters: of which the first fifteen treat of the spirit of conquest, and the latter twenty of its twin-sister usurpation. The author takes pains to describe the qualifications under which he comes forwards as the adversary of the warsystem, and premises that, so far from considering war as wholly and absolutely pernicious, he admits it to be favourable for the display of our greatest and noblest qualities. In the present state of society, however, war can deserve this eulogium only when founded on justice, and on the cordial cooperation of the people at whose charge it is carried on. Now in these important points modern Europe differs, he says, (p. 6 and 7.) most essentially from the condition of ancient Greece and Italy. Instead of petty states living in perpetual jealousy, and almost always at open variance with each other, we have now nations of vast population, united under one sovereign, secured by their numbers against the dread of foreign invasion, and cultivating those habits which cause war to be felt as a severe burden. Productive industry is now the channel for arriving at those possessions which, in the days of antiquity, were accounted the meed of warlike exertion; or, in other words, we endeavour to obtain by an appeal to the inte rest of our fellow-creatures that which our forefathers demanded by a less gentle course. 'War,' says the author, 'is the impression of a savage mind; commerce is the result of civilized calculation." Among the ancients, successful hostility produced large additions to individual property, in the shape of slaves, tribute, and territory; among the moderns, the spoils of war are almost invariably inferior in value to the results of peaceful industry. The Roman government, in giving a military turn to the spirit of the people, proceeded in concurrence with the leading circumstances of its situation; while a modern government, desiring to imitate the policy of the Roman, would have to encounter the most serious opposition from the condition of its subjects.

M. de C. proceeds to examine, in the same philosophical style, the various relations of his subject, under the heads of Character of a military race acting merely from interested motives;-Influence of such a military spirit on the interior of a state; Tyrannical measures required to circulate false impressions; Various disadvantages of the military system as to the progress of knowledge;'-and he concludes with what most of our readers will regard as an argument more to the purpose, viz. ' a demonstration that the successes of a con