or have to face peculiar inconveniences in its climate. The genius of the Persians is lively and volatile, to a degree much exceeding other nations of the East. They are powerfully affected by that which is presented before them at the moment— forgetful of the past, careless of the future-quick in observation, and correct as well as quick, when they give themselves leisure to examine the principles of their decision-but often contented to draw their conclusions too rashly and hastily. It is evident that the acuteness of a spectator of foreign manners is of the first consequence in rendering his lucubrations spirited and interesting; and that the erroneous results at which his precipitate ingenuity may often arrive, cannot fail to afford a proportional share of amusement. The errors of the dull are seldom productive of mirth; and the information which he may sometimes convey is so much alloyed by the natural stupidity with which it is amalgamated, that, to say truth, few persons care to be at the trouble of separating it, just as (since the Dutchmen gave up that task) it has not been thought worth while to extract the small quantity of silver which is contained in every ton of lead. It is he that is witty himself, says Falstaff, who is the cause of wit in others; and the mercurial Persian may be equally expected to afford entertainment in both capacities. But we may safely say, that, not amusement only, but instruction of a very serious kind is to be derived from considering the nature of some of the materials which are here under the management of a master.

Hajji Baba, as the reader probably well knows, is a roguish boy, the son of a barber of Ispahan, who becomes the attendant upon a merchant, is made prisoner by a band of Turcomans, with whom he is forced to become an associate, although, as in the case of Gil Blas, a private feeling of cowardice greatly aids the moral sense in rendering the profession disgusting to him. After having the signal glory of conducting the tribe to a successful enterprise on his native city, he escapes from the Turcomans to be plundered by his own countrymen-is reduced to be a water-carrier-a seller of tobacco, and at length a swindler. He emerges from this condition to become the pupil of the Persian physician-royal. From this situation he rises to the kindred dignity of an immediate attendant on the chief executioner, and, of course, a man of great consequence in a state where various gradations of violence, from a simple drubbing to the exercise of the sabre or bowstring, form the pervading principle of motion. In this last character a scene is introduced (the death of the unhappy Zeenab), tending to show that, though the author has chiefly used the lighter tints of human life, its darker shadows are also at his command. The consequences of this tragedy deprive Hajji of his post, and he is reduced to take sanctuary. He changes his manners, lays aside the military profession, and assumes airs of devotion-becomes a respectable character, somewhat allied to Sir Pandarus of Troy-but is once more involved in ruin by the superstitious and intolerant zeal of a Mollak

to whom he had attached himself. After such a series of adventures, he escapes to Constantinople, where he sets up as a seller of tubes for tobaccopipes. Here, in the assumed character of a wealthy merchant of high Arabian extraction, he marries a wealthy Turkish widow; but, being detected as an impostor, is obliged to resign his prize. Finally, Hajji Baba obtains the protection of the grand vizier, and of the Shah himself in particular, by the great assiduity he displays in acquiring some knowledge of the European character, which the contest between the French and English, for obtaining superior influence at the court of Ispahan, had rendered an interesting subject of consideration in the councils of Persia. At length the celebrated mission of Mirzah Firouz-the same, we presume, with the well-known Abou Taleb, Persian envoy at the court of the late King in the years 1809 and 1810-determines the fate of Hajji Baba, who receives directions to attend it in the character of secretary. Here the original account of his adventures, published in 1824, closed, with a promise that, if they appeared to wish it, the public should be informed, in due season, of Hajji's adventures while in the train of the Persian ambassador to St James's.

The author has no reason to complain of that want of attention which will sometimes silence the most pertinacious of story-tellers,-yea, even the regular bore of the club-house, whose numbers he has thinned. Hajji Baba met with a universal good reception. The novelty of the style, which

was at once perceived to be genuine Oriental, by such internal evidence as establishes the value of real old China-the gay and glowing descriptions of Eastern state and pageantry, the character of the poetry occasionally introduced-secured a merited welcome for the Persian picaroon. As a picture of Oriental manners, the work had, indeed, a severe trial to sustain by a comparison with the then recent romance of Anastasius. But the public found appetite for both; and indeed they differ as comedy and tragedy, the deep passion and gloomy interest of Mr Hope's work being of a kind entirely different from the light and lively turn of our friend Hajji's adventures. The latter, with his morals sitting easy about him, a rogue indeed, but not a malicious one, with as much wit and cunning as enable him to dupe others, and as much vanity as to afford them perpetual means of retaliation; a sparrow-hawk, who, while he floats through the air in quest of the smaller game, is himself perpetually exposed to be pounced on by some stronger bird of prey, interests and amuses us, while neither deserving nor expecting serious regard or esteem ;-and like Will Vizard of the hill," the knave is our very good friend."

The rapid and various changes of individual fortune, which, in any other scene and country, might be thought improbable, are proper to, or rather inseparable from, the vicissitudes of a government at once barbaric and despotic, where an individual, especially if possessing talents, may rise and sink as often as a tennis-ball, and be subjected to the ex

traordinary variety of hazards in one life, which the other undergoes in the course of one game. But, were further apology necessary for the eccentricity of some of the events, than the caprice of an arbitrary monarch, and the convulsions of a waning empire, we have only to compare the reverses represented as experienced by this barber of Ispahan, with the mighty changes which we ourselves have been witness to, affecting thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers. The mighty and overwhelming sway which seemed neither to have limits in elevation nor extent that the power, existence and terror of which led to the collision of European politics in the court of Ispahan-where is it now, or what vestiges remain of its influence? We might as well ask where are the columns of sand which at night whirl over the broad desert, in number and size sufficient to be the death and grave of armies, and in the morning, sunk with the breath which raised them, are only encumbering the steps of the pilgrim, as hillocks of unregarded dust.

The terrible hurricane of moral passions which had vent in the French Revolution, and the protracted tempest of war which ensued, have, like the storms of nature, led to good effects; and of these not the least remarkable has been the connecting, in intercourse of feeling and sentiments, of nations not only remote from each other in point of space, but so divided by opinions as to render it heretofore impossible that the less enlightened, wedded as they were to their own prejudices, should have derived the slightest improvement, either in arts,