not told seriously, but in a sort of half-witty vein, with little dancing quirks interspersed. "Good Heavens !" cried a Blackwood censor, "are we come to this, that men of this rank cannot even make a robbery terrific, or a love story tolerable ?" The story of the Inn at Terracina, of the Beheaded Lady, of Buckthorne, &c., all were more or less found wanting; in descriptive passages, where the traveller had taken up his rest at Venice, Florence, Naples, and other such inspiring abodes, he was declared to have produced either a blank or a blunder; and the only meed of praise awarded him was for that section of the book devoted to "some of his old genuine stuff-the quaintnesses of the ancient Dutch heers and frows of the delicious land of the Manhattoes." He was therefore counselled to eschew European and classical subjects, and to riot once more, as Knickerbocker, in pumpkin pies, grinning negroes, smoking skippers, plump little Dutch maidens, and their grizzlyperiwigged papas. If he would have honour, he was bid go seek it by prophesying and historicising about his own country, and his father's

house.

So far he followed this counsel as to write in detail the life and the voyages of his country's immortal visitor, not to say her mortal creator, Christopher Columbus

Who the great secret of the Deep possess'd,
And, issuing through the portals of the West,
Fearless, resolved, with every sail unfurl'd,

Planted his standard on the Unknown World.*

Verily, a fascinating narrative-a strange, saddening, yet inspiriting tale of the great Genoese sea-king, and of his great fight of afflictions, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils by his adopted countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. In narrating the story of this hero, Mr. Irving has endeavoured to place him in a clear and familiar point of view; rejecting no circumstance, however trivial, which appeared to evolve some point of character; and seeking all kinds of collateral facts which might throw light upon his views and motives. In this endeavour he has succeeded. biographies surpass in sustained interest this memoir of the

Few

a misconceived, misrepresented man-with none to sympathise with and foster his high imaginations,

Moving about in worlds not realised.

Perhaps the subject might have warranted a little more warmth of colouring indeed, Mr. Irving is less ornate than usual in the present instance, and might easily have drawn a more impressive figure of the admiral in the waste deep waters-" around him, mutinous, discouraged souls," to use the words of Carlyle; "behind him, disgrace and ruin; before him, the unpenetrated veil of Night." However, apart from the intrinsic charm of the recital, there is so much of the author's wonted fluency and

unaffected grace of style and clearness of method in working it out, that it leaves us sensibly his debtors, and in charity with him, if not (remembering the wrongs of Columbus) with all mankind.

*

The bent of his Spanish studies at this time found a new direction in the "History of the Conquest of Granada"-wherein he has fully availed himself, says Mr. Prescott, of all the picturesque and animating movements of the romantic era of Ferdinand and Isabella, and has been very slightly seduced from historic accuracy by the poetical aspect of his subject. "The fictitious and romantic dress of his work has enabled him to make it the medium for reflecting more vividly the floating opinions and chimerical fancies of the age, while he has illuminated the picture with the dramatic brilliancy of colouring denied to sober history." The concoction of this modern Iliad is certainly admirable. The hand of a master is seen in the delineation of character, Christian and Moorish; in the grouping of the dramatis persona; and in the evolution, act by act, and scene after scene, of the drama itself. Especially we remember with interest the portraits of Don Juan de Vera, ever dignified and chivalric, and the gallant Ponce de Leon, Marquis of Cadiz; of the daring old warrior, El Zagal, and the ill-starred Boabdil. Tenderly the historian tells the exodus of the latter, with his devoted cavaliers, from the city of the Alhambra-how they paused on the mountain side to take a farewell gaze at their beloved Granada, which a few more steps would shut from their sight for ever, and which never before had appeared so lovely in their eyes-the sunshine, so bright in that transparent climate, lighting up each tower and minaret, and resting gloriously upon the crowning battlements of the Alhambra, while the vega (plain) spread its enamelled bosom of verdure below, glistening with the silver windings of the Xenil ; how the proud exiles lingered with a silent agony of tenderness and grief in view of that delicious abode, the scene of their loves and pleasuresuntil a light cloud of smoke burst forth from the citadel, and a peal of artillery, faintly heard, told that the city was taken possession of, and the throne of the Moslem king lost for ever; and how, thereupon, the heart of Boabdil, softened by misfortunes, and overcharged with woe, could no longer contain itself, and the words of resignation, Allah achbar! died upon his lips, and tears blinded his last glance at the metropolis of his

sires.

Far less satisfactory, to our thinking, is the collection of tales entitled "The Alhambra❞—for we shared in the "dolorous disappointment" of an eminent reviewer, who observes that he came to it with the eager supposition that it was some real Spanish or Moorish legend connected with that romantic edifice; and behold! it was a mere Sadler's Wells travesty (before the reign of Phelps and legitimacy) applied to some slender fragments from past days. The observation applies, however, to the plan of the work, not to the execution.

But we must "hurry on"-which Mr. Irving did, à merveille, in his rapid production of volume after volume. "A Tour on the Prairies" recals him to his own country, in one of its most distinctive features, and is agreeably described, without any straining at effect, or long-bow draughtmanship. "Astoria" followed-the story of a merchant-prince's

* Prescott's "History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,” vol. ii., ch. 4.

commercial enterprise, from its projection to its failure; sometimes tedious, but not without moving accidents by flood and field. "Abbotsford and Newstead" is a delightful specimen of biographical-topographical gossip the former part making up one of the most charming chap, ters in Lockhart's Life of Scott;" which is giving it unstinted praise, yet praise as discreet as emphatical. "Captain Bonneville" is a kind of sequel to "Astoria,” relating the expedition of a chieftain of trappers and hunters among the Rocky Mountains of the Far West. But the supply of this sort of information concerning bark canoes and wigwams, Indian swamps and Indian scamps, snowy mountains and sun-scorched prairies, beaverskins and buffalo meat, salt weed and cotton-wood bark, was by this time beginning to exceed the demand, and the excitement kindled by Cooper's romances was becoming subject to the law of reaction. Hence these works fell comparatively flat on the public ear, and the public voice was heard to murmur that Geoffrey Crayon had written himself dry, and that his every later literary birth was a still birth-a sleep and a forgetting.

.: I

drow

For awhile he was silent. When again his voice was heard, it was heard gladly, and the echo of response was still fraught with the music of popularity, and swelled with resonance of welcome, Oliver Goldsmith: a Biography," was a theme a little the worse for wear; but an English public was too fond of both Geoffrey Crayon and him" for shortness called Noll,"

3

Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll,

not to lend a willing ear to what the one had to say of the other. Prior's life was voted a pattern of industry, but left unread. Forster's was highly, widely, and deservedly admired, and remains the Life-being executed, as Mr. Irving himself testifies, with a spirit, a feeling, a grace, and an eloquence, that leave nothing to be desired. That Mr. Irving's biography. made its appearance at all, when by its own averment it was no desideratum, is explained by the fact that its author had already published it in a meagre and fragmentary form, which attracted slight notice; and now, in the course of revising and republishing his opera omnia, felt called He

upon to reproduce it in a more complete and satis to whose li

writes con amore, and with ever-prompt indulgence, one terary genius his own is indebted and akin. Whereas Johnson said of poor Goldsmith, "Let not his frailties be remembered: he was a very great man," it is Mr. Irving's course to say, let them rather be remembered, since their tendency is to endear; since he was no man's enemy but his own; since his errors, in the main, inflicted evil on none but himself, and were so blended with humorous and touching circumstances as to disarm anger and conciliate kindness; since there is something in the harmless infirmities of a good and great, but erring creature, that pleads affectingly to our common nature-as being ourselves also in the body, os kai ȧvтOL Ovres év σwμari. Prudish censors may scout this sort of indulgence on the part of a critical biographer. For ourselves, we have too much fellow-feeling with Elia's veneration for an honest obliquity of mind, to find the indulgence culpable; thinking with Elia, that the more laughable blunders a man shall commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you that he will not bewray or overreach you. "I love the safety," protests dear,

canonised Charles, "which a palpable hallucination warrants, the security which a word out of season ratifies. And take my word for this, reader, and say a fool told you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition.' Goldy was no fool, though; but his nature found it occasionally dulce desipere, and not always in loco.

The "Life of Mahomet," like the preceding, seemed to require expla nation, since it confessedly could add no new fact to those already known concerning the Arabian prophet. The author tells us it forms part of a projected series of writings illustrative of the domination of the Arabs in Spain-most of the particulars being drawn from Spanish sources, with the addition of assistance from the elaborate work by Dr. Weil, and other recent authorities; his object in constructing it being, to digest into an easy, perspicuous, and flowing narrative (wherein so few can compete with him) the admitted facts concerning Mahomet, together. with the leading legends and traditions connected with his creed, and a summary of the creed itself. The pretensions of this memoir are, therefore, small, as regards historical weight. It is deficient, moreover, in the matter of contemporary history, so essential to a due understanding of Mahomet's political and religious stand-point. The criticism on Mahomet's personal character is of that moderate and judicious kind which the author's antecedents might have warranted us to expect-neither condemning the prophet as an impudent impostor, juggler, and sensualist, nor exalting him to the honours of hero-worship. Mahomet is neither taxed with heartless selfishness, and ruinous imbecility, nor eulogised for "total freedom from cant," "deadly earnestness," and "annihilation of self."* He is portrayed as an enthusiast originally acting under a species of mental delusion, deeply imbued with a conviction of his being a divine agent for religious reform, but who, after his flight to Medina, became subject to worldly passions and worldly schemes yet throughout his career, in a great degree, the creature of impulse and excitement, and very much at the mercy of circumstances. With equal impartiality Mr. Irving discusses the lives and actions of his successors.

But New Monthly space and patience will no farther go, and leave us only room, in anticipation of his promised life of Washington, to bid that great man's namesake a pleasant and respectful au revoir.

ORIENTAL ARCHEOLOGY.*

In the

THE state of things in Western Asia is certainly very much changed to what it used to be. This is in part owing to some real progress among the Turks, in part to increased communication with Europeans, and improvement of the natives themselves. In 1820 Mr. Rich started from Baghdad on a visit to Kurdistan and Nineveh, accompanied by the officers and servants of the residency, and a guard of twenty-five Sepoys and their subadar. Mrs. Rich also travelled, attended by women servants, and all the state of a harem.. Yet, with such an escort, the mound of Jonah had to be measured surreptitiously, the Yezidis were left enveloped in mystery, and vain attempts were made to visit Al Hadhr. time of the Euphrates expedition, Syria and Palestine were held by the Egyptians. The Arabs of Syria and Mesopotamia were in open revolt, and the Kurds were only held in check at one extremity by Rashid, surnamed from his exploits, Kurd Pasha; and at the other by Ali Pasha, of Baghdad. The navigation and exploration of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris was carried on by an express firman of the Sublime Porte, and under the especial protection of the Sultan: the expedition was thus at times obliged to uphold the authority of the Porte, among semi-barbarous savages, by vigorous measures, which appalled the then aged diplomatist at Baghdad, who, during some thirteen years' residence at the city of the Khalifs, had never ventured as far as the ruins of Babylon; and which Mr. Layard has been misled by the same influences to designate as "highly imprudent and ill-advised acts."

The Euphrates expedition was followed by the more humble Kurdistan expedition: Syria was still in revolt, and the defeat of the Turks at Nizib, during the progress of the expedition, had thrown the whole country into a state of disorder; the Kurds were harassing the Turks in the very heart of Asia Minor; the Arabs held Mesopotamia up to the walls of Mardin; the Yezidis, under the descendant of an Umniyad Khalif, were all-powerful in the Sinjar, and all Turkish Kurdistan was under the undisputed sway of its warlike bays, among whom Badir Khan, the exterminator of the Nestorians; Nur Ullah, the murderer of Schultz, the Bay of Rahwanduz; the redoubted antagonist of Ali Pasha, and Mahmud, Bay of Mahmudiyah, claimed to be lineal descendants of the Abbasside Khalifs. Still, notwithstanding these difficulties, two complete sections, illustrating the geological structure and physical configuration of the central mountain districts of Kurdistan were obtained, the central Nestorian regions were explored. and the footsteps of Xenophon and the retreating Greeks were faithfully followed out.

The French next sent Botta to the same regions. Qualified by nearly twenty years' residence in the East, by great archæological acquirements, and intimacy with both the Arabic and Turkish languages, and backed by an enlightened government, with whom archæological researches have always been held in honour, aided by the more liberal spirit that

*Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, with Travels in Armenia, Kurdistan, and the Desert; being the result of a Second Expedition, undertaken for the Trustees of the British Museum. By Austen H. Layard, M.P., &c. John Murray.