arrive at the level of his own folly. Every person acquainted, with the pride of human nature will believe, that this course of inductions will be attended to with less prejudice when set forth by a reasoning book than a dictating friend, and will therefore see the necessity of our second advice. If too great excitability and power of imagination be observed in childhood, much may be done by a sound discipline to restrain it. Let the child be protected from the sheeted spectres of servants, and the boy from the Schidonis, and rattling curtains and palls of romance writers. Let his first ideas of the Almighty be those of a God of mercy, who gives him every blessing-who offers himself to childhood under the most benign of characters, as taking little children in his arms, and putting his hands upon them and blessing them. Let him be taught to see God in storms and hear him in the wind, not as the 'poor Indian,' but by having his mind tutored to trace the regular course of God's providence in the most striking phenomena of natural science: and we see no objection, and little difficulty, in explaining to him so much of metaphysics as may enable him to unravel the associations of darkness and the churchyard; to be on his guard against imagination, (that enemy in the citadel,) and not to abandon himself to the impulses of the orator without suspecting the contagion of sympathy. Will our northern friends allow us to recommend, in addition to the inductions with which we have supplied him, that his mind be trained in the school of an acute and severe logic, (that logic which they affect to despise as they do its inventor,) lest a fallacy in argument may bind him to some fanatical conclusion which he had not been betrayed into by association, imagination, or sympathy? We have been led into a longer article than we intended. But we cannot think that either our own or our reader's time has been wasted, if it prevent a single individual from being seduced by the weakness of his nature into the absurdities and miseries of superstition, that most striking of all the instances that-corruptio optimi fit pessima. ART. IX.-The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan. 12mo. THE 3 vols. 1824. HE Adventures of Hajji Baba, like the Memoirs of Anastasius, are intended to present us with a series of faithful and casy sketches of oriental scenery, manners, and life, under the agreeable veil of a fictitious narrative; to beguile us into famiharity with the peculiar and expressive features of society in countries dearest to the imagination; and, rejecting all pretence of formal instruction, to communicate the authentic but scattered N 4 results results of travelled observation and experience, through the me dium of a connected and amusing story. *360 51 #1 fizh Jud So far the two works, in their plan and in their design, are in perfect accordance. In the theatre of action, in the developement of national characteristics, in tone of mind and colouring of sentiment, in all the essentials of originality, they are totally distinct; and the common fashion, into which both writers have wrought the materials of knowledge and fancy, is altogether independent of the intrinsic worth of their stores, and the quality of their workmanship. Considered only as a tale abounding in detached situations of deep and fearful excitement, delineating the storm of passion and crime with appalling fidelity, and displaying an intimate acquaintance with the darkest workings of the human heart, Anastasius is unquestionably the production of greatest vigour and power; nor is there any thing in the simple and quiet tenor of the narrative before us, which can challenge competition with those outbreakings of splendid imagery and beautiful language, those vivid and poetical descriptions of nature, and that shrewd and sarcastic illustration of character, which are frequently the peculiar charm of Mr. Hope's composition. As a novel, there fore, Anastasius, with all its inequalities, its occasional defects of imperfect connexion and improbability, of dullness and prolixity, must bear away the palm:-but here its superiority terminates. As a map of manners, as the effort of a foreigner to impregnate his style of thought and opinion, his imagination and even his diction, with the singularities of oriental habits and mind and expression-in a word, to clothe his ideas and language in the complete costume of the east-the Memoirs of the Greek must yield in the perfection of dramatic truth and propriety to the adventures of the pure Asiatic before us. ...We have subjected these little volumes, as far as regards the measure of their agreement with eastern manners and characteristics, to the test of a severe examination, which would have been unfair, if it had not been in some degree invited by the introduction prefixed by the author to his work. After perusing his narrative, we turned over the pages of several of the tales in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; which, of all the books that have ever been published on the subject, give, as he remarks, the truest picture of the orientals, because the collection is the work of one of their own community; and it is really curious to observe how exactly he has identified the current of the hero's fortunes the character of his adventures and associates; the customs, feelings, and opinions of his country, with the examples of every day eastern life which may be gathered from those singular chronicles of Asiatic manners. Nor has the hand of time obliterated a sin gle gle feature of this resemblance between the past and the presents But Asia is the only part of the universe where the form of society continues changeless and imperishable, amidst the revolutions of ages and the ruin of empires. * -Imeone respect, our author's sketches differ essentially from the native touches of the Thousand and One Nights. The informa tion on oriental customs which may be gleaned from those exhaustless stores of fiction, must be caught entirely from passing allusions and references to the ordinary habits of the great Asiatic family but such allusions, in tales originally composed for the vulgar amusement of eastern listeners, necessarily pre-suppose a familiar acquaintance with all those peculiarities of society among themselves which, to an European reader, are the principal objects of research. It follows, then, that, although those romances of wild imagination and wondrous interest, by being stripped of their endless repetitions and clothed in an European garb, have been brought as nearly as practicable to the level of our ideas and comprehension, there are yet many things in them which it is impossible for any one thoroughly to understand who has not, lived some time in the east, and enjoyed frequent oppor tunities of mingling with its inhabitants. The improbabilities and extravagance of the incidents in the Arabian Nights have, further, a tendency to destroy that air of reality and truth which it is so desirable to preserve in the illustration of life, where the design is at once to please the imagination, and inform the under standing. It would of course never enter into the deliberate intention of a genuine Asiatic novelist to enlighten the stranger in the traits of common manners among his countrymen; and, on the other hand, the didactic reports of a traveller must be too general in their nature, too cold and feeble in their effect, to leave very satisfactory impressions on the mind. The author of the Adventures of Hajji Baba has certainly done much to remove the deficiencies of these opposite sources of knowledge. He has shrouded the habiliments of the traveller under an impenetrable oriental disguise, and has very happily contrived to connect such a description as a Persian might naturally give of his adventures, with explanations of customs which seem to drop from him by accident, and as it were unconsciously, in the course of his story. The keeping of the assumed character appears to us perfect: the tone of the narrative is exclusively Oriental, and the turn of expression in the numerous dialogues so appropriate that it is rarely possible to detect a thorough homebred Anglicism in their form. In other respects, the composition is always unaffected, and, we must add, sometimes unpardonably careless and incorrect. The work, on the whole, however, is one which, without being in any way remarkable for great force of invention, or extraordinary insight into human nature, could have been composed only after long residence in Persia, and shrewd observation of the natives. The high diplomatic situations in which the author was placed, gave him opportunities that Europeans have seldom enjoyed of communication with all ranks of the liveliest and most intelligent people of the east; and perhaps there are not, besides himself, more than two individuals in this country who could have amused us with similar illustrations of Persian life. Of the truth of his portraits, and the genuineness of the colouring, we have before us a valuable testimony, in the decla ration of one of these accurate judges, that the book is as true a picture of Persians, of their manners, their conversation, and their character, as could possibly be painted; and that he felt confident he could sit down and, as it was read to him, put the colloquies verbatim into the present idiomatic language of Persia. "We shall not conduct our readers minutely through all the adventures of the Persian, but, contenting ourselves with tracing a rapid outline of the story, shall afterwards extract and group a few of its most striking delineations of national manners, customs and character.-Hajji Baba is the son of a barber at Ispahan; and is indebted for the first of these names (the pilgrim) to the accident of his birth having taken place while his parents were performing a pilgrimage to the tomb of Hosein. This designation, which was given to please his mother, who spoilt him, procured for him during life a great deal of unmerited respect; because, in fact, that honoured title is seldom conferred on any but those who have made the great pilgrimage to the tomb of the blessed Prophet at Mecca.' He is taught to read the Koran, and to write a legible hand by a mollah, or priest, whom his father was wont to shave for the love of Allah ;' and, at the age of sixteen, quits the paternal roof to see the world in the suite of Osman Aga, a Bagdad merchant, who was journeying with a caravan to purchase lambskins at Meshed in Khorassan. After reaching in safety Tehran, the modern capital of Persia, the caravan is attacked on the road between that place and Meshed by a horde of Turcoman robbers, and Hajji and his master are led captives into the desert. In this situation the son of the barber tastes the lot of slavery in all its bitterness, until his dexterity in his paternal vocation gains for him some degree of favour from the Tartar chief; who, having been accustomed to have his hair clipped with the same instrument which sheared his sheep, and who knew of no greater luxury than that of being mutilated by some country barber, felt himself in paradise under his hands. Though still narrowly watched, our hero resolves to use the liberty, which the confi dence dence reposed in him might afford, to run away on the very first favourable opportunity; and, in the mean time, he exercises his ingenuity in rescuing from the hands of the Turcomans, the turban into which his old master, Osman, had sewn his money, and displays his dishonesty in appropriating to himself the ducats which its lining contained. We notice this trait in elucidation, once for all, of his character; for our friend Hajji is not the most scrupulous of mortals, and appears, though he does not say so, to give a wondrous latitude to the declaration of the Prophet of Islam, that the hand shall not be cut off for stealing dates, palm fruits, or victuals:' simply substituting, in his application of the lenient precept, the means of purchasing these creature comforts for the things themselves. The character of the adventurer is, indeed, altogether exceedingly well devised for the purpose of the volumes. Notwithstanding the confession of the author, that he has worked upon the plan of that excellent picture of European life, Gil Blas,' we do not think that his pencil exhibits any great portion of the vigour and tact which struck off an accomplished French rogue in a Spanish doublet. But he has adroitly ascribed to his vagabond hero a mixture, which is often found in the same mind, of cunning and simplicity, fraud and good nature, temerity and cowardice; a carelessness of right and wrong, without cold blooded systematic depravity; an absence of all rectitude of principle, without positive malignity of heart. Hajji is the scoundrel of real life, not the remorseless and unnatural villain of romance. The creature of circumstances, the shifting hues of his character harmonize admirably with the various colouring of his fortunes, and increase the freshness and vivacity of the scenes in which he is depicted. Before Hajji Baba can escape from the Turcomans, he is compelled to accompany them in a secret and predatory expedition agamst his native city, and to act as their guide to the plunder of the caravanserai of Ispahan. Among the prisoners taken on this occasion, is the court poet, who had stopt at the caravanserai on his journey to the capital; and the adventurer forms an acquaintance with him, which he afterwards finds productive of advantage. Worn out with expectation, Hajji, to effect his liberation from the Turcomans, suffers himself, as a last resource, to be taken prisoner by the escort of one of the sons of the Shah, who is crossing the desert to his government of Meshed. He is plundered of his old master's ducats, beaten where he looked for protection, and obliged, on his arrival at Meshed, to turn saka, or water-carrier. A sprain which he receives in bis back compels him to forsake this labour; and his next transformation is into an itinerant vender of smoke. But his frauds in adulterating his tobacco are detected |