habits, could advantageously be introduced. The women of France mingle with the men in the conversations of the world on an equal footing-Frenchmen, and Frenchwomen, will talk freely of the intrigues of the opera dancers, and discuss chastity and "the senses," like philosophers, without further transgression. An Englishwoman, laying aside her national reserve, and indulging in a new licence, will not know, with the Frenchwoman, how and where to stop.

But we must guard ourselves against being misunderstood. Englishmen in France, deceived by the frank and familiar tone of French women, have sometimes formed notions and made representations of their general conduct, alike vulgar and unfounded. No women, we believe, of any country, know better when and how to make themselves respected. Their conjugal infidelities are not more frequent than elsewhere, and the fault (we assert it in all seriousness) should be charged upon their husbands. Every Frenchman affects gallantry, makes a declaration to every woman he meets, sets the example of seduction to his neighbour, and of levity to his wife, and has little right to complain. We again disclaim imputing to Frenchwomen infidelity as wives-We judge them, on the contrary, tender, generous, and devoted. But the man who possesses the hand of a Frenchwoman without her heart, or who having gained her heart no longer prizes it, is, we think, somewhat exposed to what they pleasantly term the common lot.

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ARTICLE II.

A Journey from India to England, &c., in the Year 1817. By Lieutenant-Colonel JOHNSON, C.B., 2 vols. London: 1818.

Personal Narrative of a Journey from India to England, &c., &c., in the year 1824. By Captain the Hon. GEORGE KEPPEL, 2 vols. London: 1827.

Travels from India to England, &c., in the years 1825-6.

By JAMES EDWARD ALEXANDER, Esq., 2 vols. London: 1827.

Narrative of a Journey into Persia, &c., in the year 1817. By Captain MORETZ VON KOTZEBUE, translated from the German, 8vo. London: 1819.

Fifteen Months Pilgrimage through untrodden Tracts of Khuzistan and Persia, &c., &c., in the years 1831 and 1832. By J. H. STOCQUELER, Esq., 8vo., 2 vols. London: 1832.

If Persia and the Persians are not as well known to the home-keeping portion of the English people as France and the French, Italy and the Italians, or Holland and the Dutch; if the road from Bushire to Tehran, and from Ispahan to Tabreez, be not as familiar to us as that from London to York, or from York to Edinburgh, it is not, one might suppose, for lack of routes, and journals, and notes, and pilgrimages, to describe them; for, not only are there many travellers of an earlier æra, who give excellent accounts of the country as it was in their day, but there are abundance of voyagers of our own time, who have obligingly favoured the public with the result of their observations on their respective routes, as witness the goodly list of names at the head of this article; yet, notwithstanding all these means of information, it is singular how little is actually known to the great mass of the well informed British public, regarding the country and people in question; for we verily believe, that were the situation of Tehran, or Mushed, or Tabreez, or Hamadan, or any of the principal cities or districts of Persia, or were any characteristic of its people, to become a question in any company of a dozen or twenty persons, there would not, unless it were by mere

accident, be found two, probably not one out of the whole number, qualified to inform the rest, or even to state in what country the said city or district was to be found.

To what are we to attribute this ignorance, this utter want of sympathy with, or curiosity regarding, a country so interesting in its localities, so prominently important to the British nation in every point of view, geographical, political, and commercial, and so fast rising in consequence? How comes it that a land so celebrated, so associated with our boyish recollections as the proper soil of wonders and adventures, and with those of our youth as the classic ground of so many and momentous historical events, of such surprising revolutions, should still, to the great intelligent majority of these realms, remain an unknown region-a nation whose condition or destinies create less interest in the people of England, than those of the natives of Timbuctoo, of Bornou or Caffraria, or of the skin-clad savages of North America?

Assuredly we English are, in some respects, a singularly capricious and inconsistent people; slaves of fashion and of impulse, rather than judicious followers of reason and sound principle. What but fashion and caprice is it that directs so large a share of national talent and wealth to the exploration of regions, and the determination of points of at least questionable practical utility, while so much remains to be done that would redound equally to the true interests and honour of the nation, and to the general improvement of a large portion of the human race?

We might without much trouble produce many sufficient instances of the national inconsistency in this respect; but having already expressed our own feelings regarding it, and exposed it to the attention of the public in a late article*, we shall not again expatiate on the subject, but proceed to consider what, besides the effects of fashion and caprice, may be the causes of this strange indifference to Asiatic, and more particularly to Persian subjects.

The interest likely to be excited by Persia, and Asiatic subjects in general, in the minds of the great majority of Europeans, is, for the most part, that arising from their

Article 8, No. II.

associations with antiquity; a recollection of the mighty deeds and extraordinary events of which these countries have been the scenes. Now the degree of this interest will naturally be regulated by the accessibility of, and consequent facilities of acquaintance with these countries, the degree of obvious connection they retain with the events of former days, and the extent of visible remains which they possess, to draw the mind, by these impressions on the senses, from the ruined present to the brilliant past.

Were Italy and Greece as difficult of access to us, as Persia and Mesopotamia-were the countries themselves as inattractive -were the histories of Greece and Rome as imperfect as those of Media, and Parthia, and Babylon-and, perhaps more than all, were the vestiges of ancient greatness and splendour in these more classic lands, as rare and slight as those in the plains of Chaldea, or in the mountains and valleys of the ancient followers of Zoroaster, we should in that case doubtless have much less enthusiasm about, or even of interest in those "climes of the unforgotten brave," which it is now a disgrace not thoroughly to know, and almost an imputation on the character of a traveller, not to have visited. But so ample are the existing records of these great empires, and so well have the feelings and the habits, even the very spirit of their people been preserved, not only in their writings, but in the splendid monuments of their taste and magnificence which still exist, that the haunts of the mighty dead seem still tenanted by their shades, and one can scarce traverse the Roman forum, without looking round for a Brutus, a Scipio, a Pompey, or a Cæsar; nor ascend the Acropolis of Athens, without half expecting to meet with the ghost of a Solon, a Miltiades, or a Themistocles, upon its summit. We are familiar with every former actor on the once busy scene, and both enthusiasm and curiosity are maintained by a never failing supply of food: a thousand adventitious circumstances have, in these latter years, conspired to keep up this excitement, and the facilities of travelling have induced so great a proportion of society to explore the most interesting scenes themselves, that those who were not able to do the same, have found it expedient to make themselves acquainted from other sources, with what has excited so general

an interest, in order to keep pace with the current of the time, and protect themselves from the charge of Gothic ignorance.

Far different is the case with Asia. Doomed to be the victim of a worse than Gothic inundation-of a deluge of bigotry and violence that not only swept away all traces of former cultivation and literature, but destroyed every authentic document by which the loss might have been estimated; faint and imperfect, indeed, are the records of its former condition, and the little light that glimmers on the dark retrospect, is reflected from the brighter historic pages of those more fortunate countries with which it once held intercourse.

A like fate has attended its monuments of magnificence and art. Constructed of materials less permanent, in general, than those of Greece or Rome, the greater part have been swept away by the stream of time, or the storm of violence, save those few which have been engraved on the imperishable rock, or which, like Persepolis, have bid even a haughtier defiance to the destroyer, than those of classic lands, and still rear their hoary relics in the desert, to amaze the traveller.

Traverse the plains and mountains of Persia-what remains do we trace of the works of Cyrus and Darius? Where are the vestiges of grandeur in the wreck of those mighty satrapies that yielded them obedience? Range the desert of Mesopotamia, and what is there to mark the power and dense population of that once favoured land? Look around from the lofty mount of fire-scathed brick and potsherds that is held to be the sole remains of that enormous pile which impious man raised in mad defiance of his Almighty Creator, and say, where are the traces of the "Glory of the kingdoms"-of the "Great Babylon," which the presumptuous Nebuchadnezzar declared to have been built "by the might of my power, and for the honour "of my majesty ?" It is certain that the traces which connect the future with the past, are comparatively faint and unimpressive in Asia; while the long space of intermediate ages has little left to mark it, but a bloody and disgusting catalogue of atrocious deeds-the triumphs of tyranny and despotism-illumined at distant intervals by a transient flash of glory, or still rarer and more fleeting gleams of individual justice and humanity.

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The prospect thus becomes unpromising enough to disgust