ladies under "salutary restraints," and even seems satisfied with that ungracious part of our statute-book which permits a "man to beat his wife with a stick, provided he does not endanger the breaking of a limb." He was much surprised at the freedom of the lower orders towards their superiors; and at the comfortable condition of the servants, who, he says, (p. 264.) "sleep not on the floor but on raised beds, and are as well clothed as their mas ters." Adverting to the numerous servants who accompany a gentleman out of doors in India, he adds, "I can scarcely describe the pleasure I felt, upon my first arrival in Europe, in being able to walk out unattended, to make my own bargains in the shops, and to talk to whom I pleased; so different from our customs.'

The traveller next comes to the important point of our national character, and gives us fresh proofs of his rigid impartiality. Beginning with the lower orders, he laments their unlucky propensity to appropriate to themselves the property of others, in consequence of which he found that "we were obliged to keep our doors shut, and not to permit an unknown person to enter them." His next objection regards our national pride. "Elated," he says, "with a long continuance of power and good fortune, we entertain no apprehension of adversity." A third charge, more serious still, applies to our deficiency in religious faith, and an inclination among many to philosophy, or freethinking. In addition to these imputations, he accuses us of a want of courtesy to our inferiors, as well as of an unnecessary and troublesome luxury in our mode of living. The Arabs and Tartars, he remarks, (vol. 2. p. 36.) made their conquests neither by dint of numbers, nor by superiority of armour, but by the paucity of their wants. An English gentleman living at the court end of the town, when reproached with waste of time, will reply, 'How is it to be avoided? I answer, curtail the number of your garments; render your dress simple; wear your beards; and give up less of your time to eating, drinking, and sleeping."-He is by no means pleased that we should not be more ready to acknowledge our national defects, and he dislikes all palliatives; such as that "no nation was ever exempt from vices," or "so long as we are not worse than our neighbours, there is no danger," &c. This reasoning, he adds, is false: for fire, whether in summer or winter, is still inflammable; and the smothered flame will break out, in the sequel, with double violence. He is particularly severe on the unfortunate authors who run, he says, to the press as soon as they have acquired a smattering of a subject:

"The portion of science and truth contained in many of these books is very small; besides it is more difficult to eradicate an erro

ueous opinion once contracted than to implant correct ideas in a mind uncultivated. Far be it from me to depreciate the angelic character of Sir William Jones; but his Persian grammar, having been written when he was a very young man, is, in many places, very defective; and it is much to be regretted that his public avocations, and other studies, did not permit him to revise it, after he had been some years in India."

On turning to the reverse of the picture, Abu Taleb is by no means backward in giving us credit for a number of good qualities. Our high sense of honour, our readiness to hazard life in order to wipe off slander, our regard to principle in the pursuit of ambition, our charity to the lower orders, and our preference in many respects of things useful to things brilliant, are all points new to this Asiatic observer, and entitling us, in his opinion, to much praise. Yet, after this commendatory description, he falls into bad humour at several of our customs. The surprising number of our turnpikes, and still more the endless demands on the pocket of a stranger who visits our cathedrals, or "tombs of the kings," are by no means to his taste. A more serious objection regards the use of feather beds; "All my other Indian customs (he says) I laid aside without difficulty, but sleeping in the English mode cost me much trouble. In the depth of winter the softness of a feather bed is bearable; but as the weather becomes warm, it is productive of great relaxation."

It is some satisfaction for these serious rebukes, that the manners of the French attracted a still larger share of the author's disapprobation. After having resided between two and three years in London, he bade adieu to that "beloved city," and passed over, in 1802, into France. Here the clumsiness of the stage-coaches reminded him of a Hindoostany carriage drawn by oxen; and the cows and other animals were thin and poor, appearing like those of the east, although the soil and climate were evidently better than in England. The coarse looks of the country-women, and the filth of the inns as well as of the Parisian coffee-houses, formed additional objects of unpleasant contrast to the scene which he had just left. It was in vain that he sought in Paris a clean and retired lodging; he could obtain no reception but in buildings of many stories in height, and containing perhaps fifty persons in their various apartments. The lofty grandeur, however, of these stone edifices on the outside, formed some kind of counterpoise to the want of comfort within; while the number of hot and cold baths, and particularly the convenience of those which are constructed on boats moored in the river, was a source of high gratification; and the impression produced by the magnificent pictures in the Louvre was such as to make him think that the sights

in Dublin and London were little better than playthings. In treating of the French character, he makes a very fair statement of both sides of the question:

"The public library of Paris contains nearly a million of books, in various languages, and upon all subjects. Its establishment is the most liberal I have anywhere met with, as the people are permitted to enter it gratis, and have not only permission to read there the whole day, but to make extracts, or even to copy any book in the collec

tion."

"Whilst travelling, or when dining at French ordinaries, I was frequently surprised to see with what good humour the gentlemen put up with bad food, and worse wine; and whenever I complained, they took great pains to persuade me the things were not so bad, or that the master of the house was not in fault. The French appear always happy, and do not vex themselves with business; for immediately after dinner, they walk out, and amuse themselves, till midnight, in visiting the gardens, and other places of recreation.

"In some instances, I think the French have too much apathy and want of exertion, and that the servants take advantage of the forbearance of the better classes. In a London coffee-house, if a gentleman calls for breakfast, the waiter will at once bring him all the requisites on a tray, and afterwards eggs or fruit, if called for. This he does to avoid running backward and forward; to which the English have a great objection. But in Paris, although the waiter perfectly knows by experience what articles are requisite, he will first bring the coffee, then the sugar, a third time the milk, and before you can possibly breakfast, he must have made half a dozen trips to the bar."

"On beholding these inert qualities in the French, I was convinced that, notwithstanding their numbers, skill and bravery, they will never gain the superiority over the English; who, although inferior in strength of armies, are persevering, and indefatigable in resources and contrivances. It really astonishes me how the French, being so deficient in energy and perseverance, should have acquired so much fame and power.

"The French women are tall, and more corpulent than the English, but bear no comparison with respect to beauty. They want the simplicity, modesty, and graceful motions of the English damsels. They were also painted to an excessive degree, were very forward and great talkers. The waists of their gowns were so short and full bodied, that the women appeared humpbacked; whilst the drapery in front was so scanty as barely to conceal half their bosoms. Although I am by nature amorous, and easily affected at the sight of beauty, and visited every public place in Paris, I never met with a French woman who interested me."

From Paris Abu Taleb proceeded southward by way of Lyons, Avignon, and Marseilles; a journey during which he had ample reason to regret the convenience of English travelling. At Mar

seilles he embarked for Genoa, and found the aspect of that city and its bay one of the most delightful which he had yet seen. The custom in Italy, of allowing the ladies to be attended by cicisbeos, appeared not a little extraordinary to this jealous Orientalist. He was in hopes of obtaining a sight of Florence, Rome, and Naples, but was deterred from undertaking the journey by the report of an epidemic fever which raged with great violence in the interior of Italy. At Leghorn, the closeness of the town, and the apparent selfishness of many of the inhabitants, rendered his stay uncomfortable; so that his Italian tour, limited as was its extent, afforded him very little satisfaction, otherwise than in gratifying his taste

for music:

"The inhabitants of Genoa are all proficients in the science of music, and possess a greater variety of instruments than I have seen elsewhere. One night I was reposing on my bed, when I was roused by the most charming melody in the street I had ever heard. I started up, and involuntarily ran down stairs to the street door, but found it was locked, and the key taken away; I therefore hastened again to my room, and felt every inclination to throw myself out of the window; when, fortunately, the musicians stopped, and my senses returned.

"I had frequently been informed, in London, that the Italians excelled all the world in their skill in music; and I here acknowledge that the Indian, Persian, and Western Europe music, bears the same comparison to the Italian, that a mill does to a fine-toned organ.

From Leghorn he proceeded to Malta, where he was very agreeably surprised to find the language contain a great mixture of Arabic. Though the Maltese is chiefly compounded of Greek, Italian, and French, the pronounciation approaches very much to the Arabic, the letters S, Z, and T, being the same in both languages. His next voyage was to Constantinople, in the course of which he had a distant prospect of many classic scenes: but with these he was not strongly impressed, his knowledge of history being limited to the records of modern Persia and India. Athens he briefly describes as the "birthplace of Plato, of Diogenes the cynic, and of several other celebrated philosophers." Constantinople, as usual, was delightful at a distance, and very much otherwise on close inspection. He disliked the perpetual smoking of the Turks, the dirt of their inns, and their idle conversations carried on in their coffee-houses in a loud tone of voice. He remarked that, though the atmosphere of this metropolis is cold during a considerable part of the year, the Turks have no idea whatever of the benefit of taking exercise. A Pasha enters his hall of audience, in the morning, by a small door communicating with his harem, remains there during the day, and retires at night by the same door, without even looking into his garden. The load

of clothes, which this want of exercise makes it necessary to wear, appeared to Abu Taleb still more unfavourable to health than the down beds of our own country. He was introduced to the Turkish ministers, several of whom, particularly Ahmed Effendi, spoke Persian with great fluency. From the Turkish capital he set out on his return by way of the interior of Asia, accompanied by a Mehmander, or conductor, appointed by government; but the journey, in itself unavoidably uncomfortable, was rendered doubly disagreeable by the character of his guide. From Constantinople to Bagdad is a distance of nearly 1,900 English miles, which were travelled over by him in somewhat less than two months. At Bagdad, as at Bussora, he underwent, partly from his own irritability and partly from other causes, a repetition of mortifications; all of which, however, were forgotten in the hospitable attentions of Governor Duncan at Bombay. Here a passage was procured for him on board a frigate going round to Calcutta, where he landed in August, 1803, after an absence of more than four years.

The work is concluded by an Appendix, containing a curious tract on the treatment of women in Asia; a subject which was suggested to Abu Taleb by the notion prevalent in Europe that the fair sex in the East live in a state of thraldom. The obser vations are curious, chiefly as communicating the reasons which strike the imagination of an Orientalist as productive of differences in national habits. The Asiatic women appear to him to have the greater liberty of the two; possessing, he says, (p. 412.) more authority over the property of their husbands, and over their servants, as well as over the education, the religion, and the marriage of their children. At the same time, the Asiatic ladies have no trouble in entertaining the guests, or attending to the business of the husband. If a divorce happens to take place in India, a mother does not, as in Europe, relinquish all her children to her husband, but carries away her daughters and her property; a step, indeed, which she will have little hesitation in taking on the occurrence of a quarrel of less consequence than those which lead to a permanent separation. Polygamy does not exist in India, in the manner commonly imagined; the first wife being the only one who is considered as on a footing of equality with the husband. Women submitting to become the wives of a married man are not admitted into the society of ladies, but have either a separate dwelling, or occupy a subordinate station in the house of the equal wife. The truth, indeed, is, that polygamy is very rare, and generally carries its own cure along with it; "for from what I know," says Abu T'aleb, "it is easier to live with two tigresses than with two wives." This emphatic assertion he confirms (p. 416.) by adducing various points in which an Indian lady makes no scruple