V.-Monumens de l'Egypte et de la Nubie; d'après les Dessins exécutés sur les lieux, sous la direction de CHAMPOLLION le Jeune. Pub- VI.-Minutes of Evidence taken before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, res- pecting Dramatic Entertainments. Nuove Poesie. Del Conte T. MAMIANI Del Rinnovamento della Filosofia antica Ita- all the Courts of Common Law on Monday, the 1st day of February, 1836. The Legal Observer; or, Journal of Juris- THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN REVIEW. ARTICLE I. Lamartine's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 3 vols. Paris: 1835. BEFORE Imlac had concluded his enumeration of the qualities and acquirements necessary to constitute a poet, his pupil stopped him, by saying, that he had heard enough to be convinced that no man ever could be a poet. Whilst passing in review the acquirements necessary to constitute a traveller capable of putting to profit his peregrinations in foreign lands, we are tempted to exclaim,-" How far are the necessary "qualifications of the traveller beyond the powers which "the Prince of Abyssinia deemed unattainable by human "capacity!" The majority of European states have a common origin; they have been cast in the same mould; they have been subject to the same influences-one church-one fundamental system of administration-and one literary language; and though each individual nation possesses some features peculiar to itself, they preserve, throughout, a strong family resemblance. This original relationship has been kept up by continual intercourse, sometimes of a warlike, sometimes of a peaceful character; by leagues, alliances, inter marriages of dynasties, diplomatic contracts, and commercial combinations. These have all had the effect of giving to the states of Europe not only similar laws and institutions, but similarity of thought and identity of modes of expression. Looked at from the East, Europe appears as one, rather than as many, nations. But when the traveller passes the barriers of Europe and enters the East, he finds himself in a new state-so new that he can estimate it only by contrast; and it is not until he has become familiarized to this, as it were new world, that he can even calculate the chances of being led astray. He is struck with the picturesque nature of the country; and if he have any opportunity of coming more in contact with the inhabitants, he finds that not only in externals, but also in feelings, trains of thought, and motives-that in the moral, in fact, as well as in the natural sciences, a rich field of inquiry is spread, enticing by its novelty and interest, but disheartening by its difficulties and extent. It is evident, then, that qualities essential to the poet must find play in the investigation. But still these qualities only constitute one class of those which the traveller must be possessed of; and whilst he must not consider it beneath his attention to examine into the peculiar mode in which the material interests of the people are managed (which are the foundations of every society), he must be animated by an enthusiastic love of nature, moral as well as physical; and to exquisite sensitiveness, to feel the beauty of that nature which has hitherto escaped the contamination of artificial life, he must add strong judgment, to resist the propensity to fanciful speculation. In fact, a perfect traveller in the East must be a poet, to feel, and describe-a philosopher, to inquire, collect, analyse, and decide. Therefore can we readily account for the absence of distinguished minds, as writers of travels in Turkey. Their intuitive glance belied at once the prejudices or fables that have filled most books of travels; they felt that they were in a new state of society, which required patient analysis, new views, new doctrines, and new epithets and words. They had not time to study the question, and they did not sit down to tell the world, in a book, that the state of society and government in Turkey were things they did not understand. Can a traveller, however he may avoid debatable ground -however he may put aside political disquisition or scientific research-however concise his views, or cautious his expressions-however little, in fine, he may say respecting his subject-can a traveller say that little correctly, without having thoroughly examined the country he describes, and without possessing the opportunities, time, and qualifications requisite for his successful application to such a pursuit? Confessedly, no individual would trust to the judgment of another on a matter, however trivial, with which he himself had no personal knowledge, unless that other were the person among his acquaintance best informed on the matter in question. Now we do not know the name of any recent traveller in the East whose opinion would be taken or asked, on any practical question, by any sane resident in the Levant; nor is there, among the few individuals who have applied themselves with any sequence and success to the examination of that country, one who has presented himself as a writer of travels*. This, at the present moment, considering the precarious condition of that country, and the evident proximity of a collision between England and Russia, we must • From the insignificance of the great majority of the works on Turkey, a few only are known of the many that have issued from the German, French, and English press during the last ten years; and, strange to say, that the assortment of really useful books which any person going to travel there would have to take with him, would not embrace a dozen publications of the present century. The standard works are those read 200 years ago. We have yet to turn to Busbequius, Chardin, Tournfort, Thevenot, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Paul Otter, Pockoke, Spon and Wheeler, Ali Bey, Niebuhr, &c. The most recent respectable specimen of an eastern book of travels is Olivier, at the commencement of the present century. Since then, we have had special inquiries of great value, but few in number. Volney, a brilliant and airy improvisation; Beaujour, a solid and solitary examination of a particular field of commerce; -(by the bye, there is an inedited work on the general commerce of the East, of great value, by the late M. Ascalon, of Constantinople); Pouqueville, containing much information, with more falsehoods, and it is believed interested misrepresentation; Burkhardt's invaluable researches among the Arabs; and Leake's, not less valuable, but far profounder and more useful labours in Greece and western Roumelia. Ten or fifteen years ago we had several |