is no harm in it, and they who are more generous may, perhaps allow that it reads well enough.

VII-VAN EGMONT'S TRAVELS INTO ASIA.

[From the Critical Review, 1759. "Travels through part of Europe, Asia Minor, the Islands of the Archipelago, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Mount Sinai, &c. By the Honorable Ægidius Van Egmont, Envoy Extraordinary from the United Provinces to the Court of Naples; and John Hayman, Professor of the Oriental Languages in the University of Leyden Translated from the Low Dutch." 2 vols. 8vo.]

TRAVELS acquire one great part of their merit from being new. Every country seems like the picture in a camera-obscura, continually altering their tints, though the outlines be still the same. A single age introduces new customs and manners, as well as inhabitants. Those who compare the accounts of the travellers of the fourteenth century with those of the moderns, will perceive that even Asia has altered its modes, the inhabitants of many places having almost changed their nature. From every new publication of travels, therefore, the reader has a right to expect recent information, that it at least excels all other accounts by giving, if not more authentic, at least more modern descriptions. In this respect, however, the purchaser of the book in question will find himself mistaken. These travels have been performed more than an age ago; and we have had several men of better abilities, who have visited and described those countries mentioned in the title-page, later than they. To what purpose, then, a new publication, which contains accounts neither so accurate or so modern as those which have preceded it? Really we know not, unless vainly to add to the number of such descriptions, already too voluminous.

One who sits down to read the accounts of modern travellers into Asia, will be apt to fancy that they all travelled in the same track. Their curiosity seems repressed either by fear or indolence, and all are contented if they venture as far as others went before them. Thus, the same cities, towns, ruins and rivers, are again described, to a disgusting repetition. Thus a man shall go a hundred miles to admire a mountain, only because it was spoken of in Scripture; yet what informatien can be received from hearing, that Ægidius Van Egmont went up such a hill, only in order to come down again? Could we see a man set out upon this journey, not with an intent to consider rocks and rivers, but the manners and mechanic inventions, and the imperfect learning of the inhabitants, resolved to penetrate into countries as yet little known, and eager to pry into all their secrets, with a heart not terrified at trifling dangers ;—if there could be found a man who could unite thus true courage with sound learning, from such a character we might expect much information. Even though all he should bring home was only the manner of dying red in the Turkish manner, his labors would be more beneficial to society, than if he had collected all the mutilated inscriptions and idle shells on the coast of the Levant.*

* [These travels relate to a favorite project of Goldsmith himself; namely, that of penetrating into parts of Asia and bringing back the knowledge of such useful arts as are familiar to its natives, though unknown in Europe. This design occupied his mind for several years, looking forward to some favorable period for its accomplishment, which never occurred, or offered only when it was inexpedient to be pursued. A paper containing the substance, and nearly the words of the above passage, was printed by him in the Public Ledger, and introduced into the Citizen of the World. See vol. ii. p. 147. This project acquired, in the following year, new strength by the accession of Lord Bute to office. A memorial was therefore drawn up by the Poet, pointing out the advantages of a traveller proceeding thither for purposes of utility alone, and an impression prevailed among his acquaintance, that the Princessdowager of Wales had read and approved of it; but no favorable result ensued. Mr. Langton was accustomed to mention, in allusion to this scheme,

With respect to the gentlemen in view, we have no reason to doubt of their veracity: however, that circumstance alone will not compensate for dry accounts, and observations frequently true, but seldom striking. In copying the Greek inscriptions, they seem frequently to have mistaken the letters, unless this defect is to be attributed to an error of the press.

that Goldsmith had long a visionary project that, some time or other, when his circumstances should be easier, he would go to Aleppo in order to acquire a knowledge, as far as might be, of any arts peculiar to the East, and introduce them into Britain. When this was talked of in Dr. Johnson's company, he said, “Of all men Goldsmith is the most unfit to go out upon such an inquiry; for he is utterly ignorant of such arts as we already possess, and consequently could not know what would be accessions to our present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he would bring home a grinding barrow, which you see in every street in London, and think that he had furnished a wonderful improvement." In this sally there was more of sarcasm than of truth. The ambition of Goldsmith to profit by what he could find new in the East, could scarcely be deemed very absurd, when a contemplated scheme by Johnson to see the same country with more limited purposes, was viewed with complacency by himself, and applause by his friends. "At the time when his pension was granted to him," observes Mr. Langton," he said, with noble literary ambition

Had this happened twenty years ago, I should have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabic as Pocock did." Of merely mechanical arts, Goldsmith's knowledge probably was not great, neither perhaps so contemptibly small as represented; for the term embraces a wide range of objects. Having long revolved the project, he was not likely to be wholly unprepared for what he knew and stated to be a laborious task, and diligent attendance upon the London Society devoted to such pursuits, implied at least a taste for, if not acquaintance with, some of the objects contemplated in the journey. It is more than probable that his design had reference chiefly to certain processes in the arts connected in some degree with chemistry, a science with which he possessed considerable acquaintance. Thus, in the paper quoted on the occasion of his memorial to Lord Bute, he expressly mentions the extraction of spirit from milk, an improved mode of dying scarlet, and the refining of lead into a purer and more valuable metal, as matters for inquiry; an explanation which removes from his project that air of absurdity cast upon it by Johnson.-See LIFE, ch. x.

VIII-GUICCIARDINI'S HISTORY OF ITALY.

"The History of Italy, written in Italian nobleman of Florence. Translated into

[From the Critical Review, 1759. by Francesco Guicciardini, a English by the Chevalier Austin Parke Goddard, Knight of the Military Order of St. Stephen. In 10 vols. 8vo."]

NOTHING can be more just than the character given of Guicciardini by Lipsius, "Inter nostros summus est historicus; inter veteres mediocris:" if compared to modern historians, he will be found superior; if with the ancients, he must be contented with a subordinate situation. It is indeed a little extraordinary why the ancients, particularly the Roman historians, should still remain the uncontested and unrivalled masters of historical excellence. Their experience then was much more confined than ours, since, to their wisdom we can add that of an intervening space of almost two thousand years. The politics of their princes was not so confined, as the law of nations was scarcely attended to: and war, which with us is little more than a treaty written in blood, was with them the removing of empires, and the enslaving of millions still, however, with such limited experience, and in countries governed by such rude masters, Sallust and Tacitus wrote their histories, and left their successors models which they may endeavor to imitate; but if their future efforts be not attended with better success, cannot hope to rival.

That, since the revival of learning the Italians have excelled the rest of Europe in history, is a fact so well known, that it hardly deserves to be insisted upon. Barely to mention the names of Machiavelli, Davila, Nani, Muratori, and several others, will serve to silence opposition: the fact is notorious; the reason of their peculiar excellence is not equally so.

Italy is divided into a number of petty states, whose mutual

security lies in their mutual jealousy and distrusts. Here then politicians are formed, and states governed in miniature; here a man may, and often has, exerted all the stratagems of war at the head of two hundred men. and exhausted all the chicanery of polities in the government of a petty corporation. This was the soil for an historian; here, as in a map, he perceived the excellence and the inconveniences of every species of polity; could point out, with precision, the ineffective attempts of democracy, or the headlong efforts of mistaken monarchy; this was a field for historical speculation; even he that ran might, if he pleased, be a reader.

In this country Guicciardini was bred, and at the time when its petty states might properly be said to be fermenting into form. He had all the advantages that could conduce to a thorough knowledge, both of the facts he relates, aad the personages who were concerned in conducting them. He was at once (what seldom happens to be united in the same person) a scholar, a soldier, and a politician; and employed by his country at different times in all these three capacities, with advantage to it, and with honor to himself. His narrative is manly and grave, and his facts are made, as in a well-written play, to rise from each other. His impartiality appears manifest: even his own country, to which he owed so many obligations, is treated with historical justice, and its enemies treated with so much candor, that the reader can hardly say whether the author was of Florence or Pisa.

These are a part of his excellences; but it must not be concealed what critics have objected against him on the other hand. He is taxed with being tedious and particular; that he now and then indulges reflection, and retards the events which, in history, should be ever hastening towards the catastrophe. "As for that part of his history," says Montaigne, "which he seems to be