of teasing her husband; such as "keeping dinner waiting for her coming to table; visiting her own friends frequently, and remaining day after day under their roof, though repeatedly entreated by her husband to return;" all of which, it seems, are put in practice for the sake of keeping a hold on the husband's affection. Another assertion of Abu Taleb, and one which, we confess, rather startled us, is, (p. 416.) that the "Asiatics appear by their manners to place a greater reliance on a wife's discretion than the Europeans." "Here," he says, "custom prevents a married lady from going abroad without the company of a friend, and to sleep from home would be at variance with all rule; whereas in the East a wife will go unattended to the house of a lady of her acquaintance, though their husbands should be strangers, and will remain there a week without its being thought any thing unusual." Next, as to the custom in Asia, of ladies not entering into the society of gentlemen, and not even seeing them, the motive, says Abu Taleb, is choice, not compulsion; because, in the East, the house-doors being kept open all the day, the females could not, without such a precaution, be free from incessant interruption, or find leisure for domestic employments. In Europe, were commodities as cheap and servants as numerous as in India, "we might (he observes) see a separate house, table, and equipage, for the wife." Finally, he thinks it would be the practice to keep females out of sight in Europe as much as it is in India, did not the coldness of the climate require exercise in the open air; while the necessity of participating in the active duties of life calls for a degree of experience on the part of a woman, which retired habits would not afford. In India, on the other hand, the duty of a wife is limited to the simple charge of taking care of her husband's property, and of bringing up her children.

This singular and amusing production was reduced into its present shape by the author, after his return to Calcutta in 1803, from a journal commenced at the outset of his travels, and regularly continued. The book being published in MS. according to the Persian method, a copy came, in 1806, into the possession of a British officer, who procured a correct transcript of it at Allahabad; and this transcript, being brought over to England, was put into the hands of Mr. Stewart, who declares that he has translated it as literally as the different idioms of the two languages would permit. With all his solicitude, however, to adhere to the plan of the original, he found it necessary to retrench certain poetical effusions in which the author was very fond of indulging; as well as long lists of his friends at the principal places which he visited. A dissertation on anatomy, and a formidably long description of a hot-house, were likewise viewed by Mr. Stewart in the light of excrescences; but these retrenchments, with a

partial transposition of the chapters for the sake of connexion, form the only deviations from the original. The style of the translation is easy and perspicuous; and, whether the merit be due to the Persian or the Englishman, a great variety of observations will be found compressed in a smaller compass than is usual in books of

travels.

By a short note appended to the second volume, we are concerned to learn that Abu Taleb did not long survive his return to India. He was appointed a district collector in Bundlecund, and died in that situation in 1806. His property having been much reduced by his various disappointments, the East-India Company settled a pension on his wife and family.

Those passages of the narrative on which we have forborne to dwell, relate chiefly to occurrences in European politics, and to observations on matters of government; because, though Abu Taleb's information, considering his previous habits, is by no means despicable, we must be prepared for less accuracy on such topics than on those which fall under ocular observation. He is accordingly somewhat incorrect in his report (vol. 2. p. 100.) of the circumstances of Buonaparte's usurpation in 1799; as well as of the resignation in 1801 (vol. 1. p. 274.) of Mr. Pitt and the other viziers. He mistakes likewise (vol. 1. p. 89.) the Western Islands for the West Indies; and in treating (vol. 2. p. 205.) of ancient history, he finds himself so much out of his latitude as to call Troy the residence of a "celebrated philosopher and poet, named Homer." Respecting another topic, we mean the abuses consequent on the introduction of British law into India, his opinion, and the arguments urged in its support, (vol. 2. p. 9.) deserve to be read with attention. On arriving in London, he entertained a project of teaching Persian, under the sanction of government and the India Company: but the men in office delayed to give an affirmative answer until a considerable time had elapsed, and his resolution was taken to return home. We question, however, whether he would have been found to have possessed sufficient temper and steadiness for the permanent discharge of such a task.

For the Analectic Magazine.

THE IDEA OF A TRUE PATRIOT.

GRAVE observers, who, by looking steadily at the troubled ocean of life, sometimes see a little beyond the surface, will be often struck with surprise at beholding the influence which mere names exercise over the opinions of the majority of the human race. They will indeed almost be inclined to believe that the generality of men have no other criterion to distinguish virtue from vice, and that Brutus was in the right when, in the bitterness of disappointment at the failure of his attempt to free his country, he exclaimed, "O virtue thou art but a name !"

Observing this propensity in mankind to be governed by names, wise men, I mean those enlightened persons who had cunning enough to perceive the foibles of their fellow creatures, and knavery enough to take advantage of them, did, at a very early period, invent a nomenclature most admirably calculated to break down the barrier between virtue and vice, and to confound them in the minds of unenlightened men. It was thus that persecution became piety; ill nature, candour; avarice, prudence; cunning, wisdom; and self-interest, patriotism-till at last divers philosophers, observing the singular operation of these disguised vices, began to doubt the very existence of virtue.

When, for instance, they saw a man who chose to call himself a patriot abandoning himself to dishonourable intrigues, inventing and giving currency to falsehood, and outraging all those duties which compose the ligaments of society-losing sight of those honourable principles and feelings which constitute the true dignity of man, and debasing himself to the level of pitiful hypocrisy— when they saw all this, they came to the preposterous conclusion that there was no such thing as true patriotism. But the more enlarged and enlightened philosophy of the present day has furnished a remedy for these seeming incongruities, and, by a most happy distinction, reconciled private with public virtue, by demonstrating that they are entirely distinct, nay, often diametrically opposite to each other.

In no age or country, perhaps, has patriotism been so plenty as in this. In the most virtuous periods of Greece and Rome it is melancholy to observe the dearth of patriots, lawgivers, and wise men. Seven wise men living at one time in Greece, gave immortality to the age; Solon and Lycurgus, by making laws for a couple of insignificant cities, were held up as objects of infinite admiration; and such was the scarcity of patriots that they were obliged to enlist Timoleon who killed his brother, and the elder Brutus who killed his son, in order to eke out the number. These instances clearly indicate the great superiority of the moderns over those ancients who are so insolently held up by most writers as objects of imita tion; for there is hardly a village of this country that does not contain a man at least as wise in his neighbours' opinion as Thales; and one single city, as we read, called Gotham, actually produced at one time three wise men equally renowned with those of ancient Greece. As for legislators and patriots, every board of aldermen can turn out half a dozen of the one, and the others are as plenty and as cheap as mackarel.

In proportion, however, as the sect of patriots grew more numerous, it branched out into a variety of schisms, insomuch that the purity of its original source became polluted, and it is now extremely difficult to distinguish the genuine from the adulterated patriotism. I will therefore lay down some rules by which the true patriot may be recognised at first sight by persons of ordinary sagacity. There are certain characteristic and peculiar marks which enable an accurate observer at all times to discern which is the perfect, and which is the mixed or degenerate breed of animals. As I profess to have this power in a high degree, having handled many patriots in my time, the following marks may be relied on by those who may be inclined to the purchase of this species of live stock.

The true patriot is one who uniformly prefers his own interest to that of his country, and who has enlarged his mind to a perception of this great moral truth, that public is almost always incompatible with private virtue. These opinions are the foundation of the quality I am about analyzing, and without it no patriotism can be genuine, any more than Dr. Solomon's Balm of Gilead can be relied on without the doctor's own signature. Let us now inquire how the combination of these two great qualities operates to produce infinite benefit to the community at large.

This attachment of the true patriot to his own individual interest is founded on a most subtle construction, which is doubtless the true one, of the celebrated political axiom, that "the good of the whole is the same as the good of all its parts." This, rightly understood, inculcates the doctrine, that every man ought exclusively to take care of himself, which is in fact the great law of nature. Assuredly if the good of society consists in the prosperity of all its parts, the true way to attain that good is for each individual to cultivate his own interest at the expense of that of every body else. The greatest possible number of people will then become prosperous, and thus the good of the whole will be achieved in the easiest and most effectual manner.

Nothing in fact so forcibly exemplifies the presumptuous folly of mankind as their making a sacrifice of individual interest to the general benefit; or the arrogance of that patriotism which has for its object the good of a whole community. Attempts like these bespeak an utter ignorance of the limited powers of man, who, so far from being able to make others happy, can scarcely, with all his exertions, attain to a moderate degree of comfort himself. From this salutary conviction of the circumscribed sphere of mortal action, has doubtless arisen that indifference to the prosperity of others, manifested by many good men and true patriots, who wisely perceiving it was as much as they could do to make themselves tolerably comfortable in this world, very properly abandoned all solicitude for the welfare of others.

But however this opinion may be reconcilable to the feelings of the wise, it would be manifest folly in the true patriot to admit for a moment in public that it influences his conduct. That kind of honour which is proverbial among thieves, and which I suppose consists in throwing off all disguise among themselves, may possibly prompt him to unfold to his fraternity the noble principle by which he is actuated, but it will by no means suit his exalted purposes to make it public. There exists among unenlightened men a singular prejudice in favour of disinterestedness, even when it approaches to prodigality, and the thoughtless spendthrift, who in their apologetic language is nobody's enemy but his own, is always preferred to the thrifty citizen, who is nobody's friend.

It is therefore necessary that the true patriot should cautiously veil from the piercing eyes of the world, this exclusive feeling of self-interest, and adopt some ostensible motive more congenial to