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THE

LONDON REVIEW,

AND

LITERARY JOURNAL,

FOR JULY, 1816.

QUID SIT PULCHRUM, QUID TURPE, QUID UTILE, QUID NON.

An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul and its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India: Comprising a View of the Afghaun Nation, and a History of the Dourounce Monarchy. Ly the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone, of the Honourable East India ( ompany's Service, Resident at the Court of Poona, and late Envoy to the King of Caubul.

has been rendered difficult by the great variety of the regions to be described, and by the diversity even of contiguous tracts. No less a diversity will be discovered in the people who inhabit it; and amidst the contrasts that are apparent in the government, manner, dress, and habits of the different tribes, I find it difficult to select those great features which all possess in common, and which give a marked national character to the

THE merits of this work are too whole of the Afghauns.

Twell known, and two justly appreciated, to require any new recommendation to the public. The maps appended to the volume attest the indefatigable zeal and research of the travellers, who have furnished those important additions to geographical science.

It would far exceed our limits to follow Mr. Elphinstone in his itinerary through the country which Alexander explored, to territories and nations which scarcely any other civilized travellers have approached.

The principal novelty of the work is the description of the Afghan tribes, of whom little authentic information had been previously communicated, and who, from the immense extent of their territories, and their proportional excess of population, cannot but be interesting objects of speculation to the British people.

Without the literary culture of the Persians, with less pretensions to the arts of civilization than the natives of Hindostan, the Afghans appear to possess an energy of character which may eventually render them superior to both. We select the following passage, which affords the most happy illustration of their comparative merits, and is conceived in the spirit of a truly philosophical traveller.

"The description which I have attempted of the country of the Afghauns,

"This difficulty is increased by the fact, that those qualities which distin guish them from all their neighbours, are by no means the same which, without reference to such comparison, would appear to Europeans to predominate in their character. The freedom which forms their grand distinction amongst the nations of the East, might seem to an Englishman a mixture of anarchy and arbitrary power; and the manly virtues that raise them above their neighbours, might sink, in his estimation, almost to the level of the opposite defects. It may therefore assist in appreciating their situation and character, to figure the aspects they would present to a travelier from England, and one from India.

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If a man could be transported from England to the Alghaun country, without passing through the dominions of Turkey, Persia, or Tartary, he would be amazed at the wide and unfrequented deserts, and the mountains covered with perennial snow. Even in the cultivated part of the country, he would discover a wild assemblage of hills and wastes, unmarked by inclosures, not embellished. by trees, and destitute of navigable canals, public roads, and all the great and elaborate productions of human industry and refinement: he would find the towns few, and far distant from cach other; and he would look in vain for

inns and other conveniencies, which a traveller would meet with in the wildest

parts of Great Britain. Yet he would sometimes be delighted with the fertility and populousness of particular plains and valleys, where he would see the productions of Europe mingled in profusion with those of the torrid zone, and the land laboured with an industry and a judgment no where surpassed: he would see the inhabitants following their flocks in tents, or assembled in villages to which the terraced roofs and mud walls give an appearance entirely new; he would be struck at first with their high, and even harsh, features, their sunburned countenances, their long beards, and their shaggy mantles of skins. When he entered into society, he would notice the absence of regular courts of justice, and of every thing like an organized police; he would be surprised at the fluctuation and instability of the civil institutions he would find it difficult to comprehend how a nation could subsist in such disorder, and would pity those who were compelled to pass their days in such a scene, and whose minds were trained, by their unhappy situation, to fraud and violence, to rapine, deceit, and revenge: yet he would scarce fail to admire their martial and lofty spirit, their hospitality, and their bold and simple manners, equally removed from the suppleness of a citizen, and the awkward rusticity of a clownand he would probably before long discover, among so many qualities that excited his disgust, the rudiments of many virtues. But an English traveller from India would view them with a more favourable eye: he would be pleased with the cold climate, elevated by the wild and novel scenery, and delighted by meeting many of the productions of his native land-he would first be struck with the thinness of the fixed population, and then with the appearance of the people-not fluttering in white muslins, while half their bodies are naked, but soberly and decently attired in dark-coloured woollen clothes, and wrapt up in brown mantles, or in large sheepskin cloaks he would admire their strong and active forms, their fair complexions and European features, their industry and enterprize, the hospitality, sobriety, and contempt of pleasure, which appear in all their habits, and, above all, the energy and independence of their character. In India, he would have left a country where

every movement originates in the go vernment or its agents, and where the people absolutely go for nothing: and he would find himself among a nation where the controul of government is scarcely felt, and where every man appears to pursue his own inclinations, undirected and unrestrained. Amidst

the stormy independence of this mode of life, he would regret the ease and security in which the state of India, and even the indolence and timidity of its inhabitants, enable most parts of that country to repose; he would meet with many productions of nature and art that do not exist in India; but, in general, he would find the arts of life less advanced, and many of the luxuries of Hindostan unknown. On the whole, his impression of his new acquaintances would be favourable, although he would feel, that without having lost the ruggedness of a barbarous nation, they were tainted with the vices common to all Asiatics: yet he would reckon them virtuous compared with the people to whom he had been accustomed-would be inclined to regard them with interest and kindness, and could scarcely deny them a portion of his esteem."

Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft; written by Himself; and continued to the Time of his Death from his Diary, Notes, and Papers. In Three Volumes.

IT had long been the intention of Mr. Holcroft to compose the memoirs of his own life; and we are not surprised to learn that he should sometimes have enriched his novels by the introduction of his own vivid impressions or enterprising adventures,

The man who, born to poverty and obscurity, appears destined to inherit the ignorance of his fathers, yet by the secret but irresistible appeal to nature reverses the sentence, arrogates his cast, and without the lessons of instruction, without incentives from example, becomes capable of imparting delight to the learned, and instruction to the great, such a man is himself the hero of a story marvellous as romance, exhibiting all the miracles of the human mind, and illustrating the revolutions of ordinary life.

The father of Mr. Holcroft was a shoemaker in Orange-court, Westminster; but owing to imprudence or misfortune, was obliged to abandon his

rocation, and for some time appears to have led a vagrant life, without a settled place of abode, and with no regular means of subsistence. Of this period Mr. Holcroft has left us two or three anecdotes, which strongly mark the vigorous faculties he possessed from nature: at the period referred to, he had scarcely completed his seventh year. "It was in this retired spot that my father himself began to teach me to read; the task at first I found difficult, till the idea one day seized me, of catching all the sounds I had been taught from the arrangement of the letters; and my joy at this amazing discovery was so great, that the recollection of it has never been effaced. After that my progress was so rapid, that it astonished my father: he boasted of me to every body; and that I might lose no time, the task he set me was eleven chapters a day in the Old Testament. I might indeed have deceived my father by skipping some of the chapters; but a dawning regard for truth, aided by the love I had of reading, and the wonderful histories I sometimes found in the sacred writings, generally induced me to go through the whole of the task."

In these rudiments of learning was comprised the whole of his literary instruction. Many years elapsed before he acquired the art of writing; and during that long interval, he was destined to experience hardships, by which, in a character of less energy, the latent spark of genius might have been for ever extinguished. At one period, when his parents had no better resource than to wander about the country as hawkers and pedlars, their son had occasion to exercise the ingenuity of a mendicant. "Young as I was, I had considerable readiness in making out a story; and on this day my little inventive faculties shone forth with much brilliancy. I told one story at one house, another at another, and continued to vary my tale just as the suggestions arose; the consequence of which was, that I moved the good country people exceedingly one called me a poor fatherless child; another exclaimed, what a pity I had so much sense; a third patted my head, and prayed God to preserve me, that I might make a good man: and most of them contributed, either by scraps of meat, farthings, bread and cheese, or other homely offers, to enrich me, and send me away with my pockets loaded. I joyfully brought as much of my stores

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as I could carry to the place of rendezvous my parents had appointed, where I astonished them by again reciting the false tales. I had so readily invented. My father, whose passions were easily moved, felt no little conflict of mind, as I proceeded. I can now, in imagination, see the working of his features: God bless the boy, I never heard the like!' then turning to my mother, he exclaimed, with great earnestness, This must not be; the poor child will become a common-place liar, a hedgeside rogue- he will learn to pilfer, turn a confirmed vagrant, go on the highway when he is older, and get hanged.""

It is, perhaps, not easy to identify with this little ragged boy the author of Hugh Trevor and the Road to Ruin

but it was probably in this situation that he acquired those habits of patience, hardihood, and perseverance, which render energy efficient and talents productive. In his thirteenth year, we find him engaged as a stable-boy at Newmarket-a situation of comparative elegance and luxury.

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Happy had been the meal where I had enough-rich to me was the rag that kept me warm-and heavenly the pillow, no matter what, or how hard, on which I could lay my head to sleep. Now I was warmly clothed, nay gorgeously, for I was proud of my new fivery, and never suspected that there was disgrace in it-1 fared voluptuously, not a prince on earth, perhaps, with half the appetite and never-failing relish-and instead of being obliged to drag through the dirt after the most sluggish, obstinate, and despised among our animals, I was mounted on the noblest that the earth contains, had him under my care, and was borne by him over hill and dale, far outstripping the wings of the wind: was not this a change such as might excite reflexion even in the mind of a boy?

"Whether I had or had not begun to scrawl and initate writing, or whether I was able to convey written intelligence concerning myself to my father, for some months after I left him, I cannot say; but we were very careful not to lose sight of each other; and following his affection as well as his love of change, in about half-a-year he came to Newmarket himself, where he at first procured work of the most ordinary kind at his trade.

"There was one among his shop

mates whom I well remember, for he was struck with me, and I with him; he not only made shoes, but was a cock feeder of some estimation; and, what was to me much more interesting, he had read so much, as to have made himself acquainted with the most popular English authors of that day: he even lent me books to read, among which were Gulliver's Travels and the Spectator; both of which could not but be to me of the highest importance. I remember, after I had read them, he asked me to consider, and tell him which I liked best.-I immediately replied, There was no need of consideration, I liked Gulliver's Travels ten times the best. Aye,' said he, 'I would have laid my life on it, boys and young people always prefer the marvellous to the true. I acquiesced in this judgment; which, however, only proved, that neither he nor I understood Gulliver, though it afforded me infinite delight." Mr. Holcroft resided two years and a half at Newmarket; when conceiving disgust for his associates, and an ardent desire to gratify his love of knowledge, he removed to London, though with no fairer prospect than working with his father at a cobler's stall. It is here that, to our infinite regret, the original MS. ends-and it was impossible that any other biographer should describe his impressions on returning to the metropolis, or trace the singular progress of a mind which appears to have made an almost immediate transition from ignorance to intelligence.

In his twentieth year Mr. Holcroft married, and necessity soon forced him to try his fortune on the stage.

From an actor he became a dramatic writer and some of the most successful translations were executed by a man who, for the first time in his life, took lessons in the French language at twoand-thirty.

Much praise is due to the posthumous biographer for the unassuming simplicity of his arrangement-the copious extracts from the diary-and the judicious selection from the correspond

ence.

Systematic Education; or, Flementary Instruction in the various Departments of Literature and Science, with practical Rules for studying each Branch of useful knowledge. By the

Rev. W. Shepherd, the Rev. J.Joyce, and the Rev. Lant Carpenter, LL.D. Two vols. 8vo.

Of this truly valuable work it will, perhaps, be a sufficient eulogium to observe, that it comprises in two octavo volumes, a complete series of elementary instruction in every branch of literature and science, the knowledge of which forms a part of liberal education.

The authors intimate, that "their attention has been principally directed to the improvement of pupils between sixteen and twenty-five years of age;" and they modestly add, "it has been their aim to compress within a narrow compass, a great fund of important knowledge. which could only be obtained by the perusal of a multitude of volumes; and they flatter themselves, that on some topics their elements will supply materials for instruction, not unworthy the attention of the preceptor who may be engaged in conducting the studies of pupils somewhat advanced in scholastic attainments. As they have endeavoured to give a correct and familiar introduction to the principal departinents of scientific and literary inquiry, they are not without hopes that their work will be found an useful text book in those schools where instruction comprehends other subjects besides the classics, and that it will be of eminent service to those young persons, in the process of whose early education the classics have been almost the exclusive subject of atten

tion."

It is impossible to withhold approbation from a plan of which the utility is even more prominent than the novelty, and which is admirably calculated to supply the deficiencies, and obviate the defects, incident to two classes of juvenile readers.

For the youthful tyro, who is emancipated from the trammels of scholastic discipline, it offers an experienced guide to prevent the habit of desultory reading so baneful to the cultivation of the mind, and to that vigorous exertion of its powers, which is equally neccs sary to ensure success in the labours of study or the business of active life.

To the solitary student (the pupil of Nature), whom an irresistible predilection has impelled to intellectual pursuits, it affords a still more valuable

Assistance :—and we are persuaded, that whoever shall implicitly follow the rules prescribed in the classical course of study, will make ample progress, unaided by any other preceptor.

Even the solitary Thinker, who has to lament the irreparable waste of time in early youth, will discover in this practical system a chart with which to explore those regions of philosophy he had, perhaps, believed to be inaccessible. Happily, the pursuits of science are open at any age to the diligent enquirer, and each germ of cultivation should be fostered to gladden and embellish the comparative dreariness of declining life.

The first volume embraces the belles lettres, history, geography, chronology, and the mathematics: the second includes natural philosophy, chemistry, natural history, moral and mental philo sophy, an admirable essay on political economy, and concludes with a letter on the evidences of the Christian religion.

The scientific part of this work is extremely well executed; and we are particularly impressed with the happy combination of brevity and perspicuity exemplified in the chapters on chemistry, mineralogy, and zoology. As a specimen of the style (and, what is of still more importance, the spirit of the work), we subjoin an extract from the chapter on history.

"Home's History of England affords a singular instance of a literary production, at first unjustly depreciated, and afterwards gradually winning its way to a station of high eminence in general estimation. On the appearance of that portion of his work which he first submitted to the public inspection; viz. the history of the House of Stuart, Mr. Humne was assailed, as he himself informs us, by an universal ery of reproach and disapprobation.

"The leaders of the public opinion were at that time strenuous supporters of the Whig principles which justified the claim of King William the Third, and consequently of the Hanover family, to the throne of these realms, and they feceived with indignation references to ancient authorities and coloured stateinents of facts which tended to contro vert many of their favourite maxims. At the same time, Mr. Hume's sceptical notions on the subject of religion were

Europ. Mag. Vol. LXX. Ju'ý, 1816.

well known to the literary public, and his reputation was attacked by an union of orthodox zeal and political enthu siasm: his constitutional apathy, how ever, prevented him from being discou raged, and he proceeded by degrees to enlarge his plan, till his history was completed in its present form, em bracing the period from the invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Revolution in 1688. In process of time, his history has been generally acknowledged to be a standard work, and its merits are certainly very considerable. In his selec tion of topits, its author is Judicious in his investigation of facts, he is in the main accurate and precise; in his delineations of character, he evinces a deep insight into human nature. Calm and dispassionate consideration, and important enquiry, have, it has been ob served, tended to confirm, rather than to controvert, those views of the British constitution which for a time tendered him so unpopular as an historian. It is now generally agreed, that the liberties of Englishinen are not to be staked upon precedent: we may, there fore, read with patience even an industriously ample record of the despotic maxims which regulated the conduct of certain of our ancient monarchs; and while improvements in our civil polity can be peaceably effected by the regular forms prescribed by the constitution, we may listen without vexation to the minutest detail of the tyranny of the Tudors. The chief defect of Mr. Hume is, however, a want of that feeling of sympathy with the general body of the community which fosters in the mind of man the generous principles of freedom; he views with little or no indignation the violence and cruelty of despotism; and records with frigid apathy the glorious struggles of the assertors of liberty he can bestow a sigh upon the sufferings of men exalted in rank, and endued with power; but for plebeian sorrows he has no pity."

In another edition, we doubt not the authors will assign a proper place to Sismondis Republiquer, au historical picture of Italy during the middle ages, which forms a most important acquisition to modern literature, and is in reality a chef d'œuvre of learning and taste, of cloquence and philosophy

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