ART. XI. LIST OF WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED.

288

List of Works recently Published.

America, the East and West Indies, &c. with those of Great Britain, as applicable to the Corn Trade; also a topogra phical description of every principal port on the continent, and a capacious treatise on the negotiation of foreign exchanges, with examples and operations. The whole embracing a most comprebensive field of information, as it respects trade in general. By James Sheppard, author of the British Corn Merchant's and Farmer's Manual. 8vo. 12s.

POETRY.

Rone: a poem in two parts. 8vo. 6s. Cause and Effect; "or Nature's Proofs of a Divine Creator: a poem. By the Rev. Robert Moffat. 12mo. 5s.

-POLITICAL.

A Speech, delivered in the House of Lords, on Thursday, June 14, 1821, 'by Herbert, Lord Bishop of Peterborough ; in answer to a petition presented to the House of Lords respecting his examination questions. Is. 6d.

The Reply of the People to the Letter from the King. 2s.

1

The Instifficiency of Human Efforts, contrasted with the All-sufficiency of Divine Power, in evangelizing the hea then world: a Sermon delivered at Great Queen Street Chapel, Lincoln's

Inn Fields, on June 21st, 1821, at the
Anniversary of the Baptist Missionary
Society. By the Rev. Thomas Steffe,
of Bristol. 8vo. 1s.

The Seventh Memoir of the Translation of the Holy Scriptures, carrying on by the Missionaries at Serampore, containing a particular account of their progress up to December, 1820. 8vo. Is.

A Candid Examination of the Claims of Modern Deism. By George Redford, A.M. 1s. fine paper, 1s. 6d.

Deism compared with Christianity ; being an epistolary correspondence, containing all the principal objections against revealed religion, with the answers annexed; in which is shown the insufficiency of the arguments used in support of infidelity. By Edward Chichester, M.A. Rector of the parishes of Culdaff and Cloncha, in the diocese of Derry. 3 vols. 8vo. Il. 7s.

Adult Baptism, and the Salvation of all who die in infancy, maintained : Din strictures on a sermon, entitled, “The Right of Infants to Baptism," by the Rev. H. F. Burder, M.A. By Isaiah Birt.

The First Principles of Christian Baptism, deduced from the New Testament. By Thomas Eisdell, of Enfield.

TOPOGRAPHY.

Sketches of India. For Fireside Tra vellers. By a Traveller, 8vo. 10s. 6d.

A

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR OCTOBER, 1821.

Art. 1. Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia,
&c. &c. During the Years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. By
Sir Robert Ker Porter. With numerous Engravings. In Two
Volumes. 4to. Vol. I. pp. xxiv, 720. London. 1821.

HIS volume terminates with the Author's jonrney through Persia Proper. A second, not yet published, is to comprehend Babylonia, Kourdistan, and the countries of the empire which occupied so important a space in the old histories of the East.

In the former series of this Review, the First Journey of Mr. Morier was noticed in terms of strong commendation. Persia was then ground almost untrodden by the living race of travellers; and its manners, its moral and social habitudes, the monuments scattered over its territory, attesting its ancient grandeur and early civilization, its gaudy and embellished literature, received ample illustration at the hands of a person whose accomplishments and official rank peculiarly fitted him for the task. That we have not yet devoted an article to the Second Journey of this Traveller, has been, chiefly, because the same route was traced, the same customs delineated, the same subjects investigated, while the freshness and grace of novelty were wanting to recommend it. We deem it, however, but just to remark, that it abounds with ingenious and learned expositions of scriptural and profane history, with topics of the highest interest to the antiquary, and the most useful information to the general reader.

Among the recent descriptions of Persia must also be classed the Geographical Memoir of Mr. Kinneir, and the second volume of Sir John Malcolm's History, which is occupied with a minute account of the country, people, religious opinions, and civil manners of Persia, and which, though unskilfully arranged, conveys new and striking notices, not to be found in the earlier accounts of Chardin, Le Brun, and Niebuhr. But while we Vol. XVI. N. S. 2 C

have no reason to lament the scantiness of information relative to Persia, we are by no means oppressed with its superabundance; and we were pleased when a new work on the same subject was announced from so diligent a traveller and so accurate an artist as Sir Robert Ker Porter. We hoped (too fondly indeed) that time, and the critical rebukes which his former travels into Russia and Sweden had encountered, would have pruned the luxuriances, and healed the affectations of his diction, and that fully impressed with the gravity of his subject, he would have imparted in a condensed form, the results of his laborious investigations concerning the most interesting country in the world.

We are not attaching an undue importance to Persia, im using this phrase. Once, the mistress of the Eastern world,the subvertor of Babylon and Egypt,—the restorer of Jerusalem, -the invader successively and victim of Greece;-one of the most familiar examples, also, in our youthful studies, of the instability of human affairs, the insecurity of thrones and kingdoms, the virtues by which empires are founded, and the causes which hasten their dissolution ;-a nation so consecrated by his toric recollections, and so eminent in civil and military virtue, must ever be interesting to a liberal curiosity. Nor is it to the great transactions of Cyrus and his successors, only, that Persia owes her importance. At a later, but by no means less interesting era, she is ennobled by the proud distinction of opposing the ambition of Rome, and checking the strong and swelling tide of her domination. Even the palsying influence of Mohammedanism did not reduce her to insignificance: she still remained the bulwark of Christendom against the Turk. And even now, scarcely breathing as she is, after a century of misrule and calamity, with a dissipated strength, and a disunited empire, the Muscovite protectors of Georgia, and the British conquerors of India, are glad to sue, by costly and distant embassies, the favour of her kings at Tehraun and Caubul.

Yielding to a desire which he had long felt of travelling to Persia across a range of countries memorable in sacred and profane history, our Author left St. Petersburgh in August 1817, for Odessa on the Black Sea, in order to embark for Constantinople, and to proceed to Persia. But at Odessa, the intelligence of the plague, which then raged in the Turkish capital, deterred him from prosecuting his projected route, and he determined on entering that country over the mountains of Caucasus. We are favoured with a short account of Odessa, and of Nicolaieff, which, with Kherson and Sebastopol, was founded by the celebrated Potemkin. At the dock-yard of Nicolaieff, Sir Robert thus moralizes on an insect said to be dreadfully injurious to the shipping of the Black Sea.

A dock-yard lias been established on the Eastern shore of the Ingul, for building ships of war. Indeed, an arsenal of this kind, and to be constantly at work too, is necessary to maintain a vy on these shores; for the Black Sea possesses a peculiarity mo ostile to its fleets than the guns of the most formidable enemy,-nothing more than a worm! But the progress of that worm is as certain and as swift as the running grains of an hour-glass. It preys on the ship's bottom, and when once it has established itself, nothing that has yet been discovered can stop its ravages. Even coppered vessels are ultimately rendered useless, when any small opening admits the perforation of this subtle little creature.' Vol. I. P. 12.

We have extracted this passage,-the simple fact of the green timber employed in ship-building from the forests of the Ukraine, being liable to a destructive insect, thus ushered to the reader in the pomp and prodigality of sentimental description,-as a sample of that unfortunate passion for amplification with which Sir Robert has so frequently exercised our patience, as we have travelled through his volume.

We forgive him for indulging it as he approached the tomb of Howard on the road to Kherson; for we would not stint the effusions of a virtuous sensibility over the tomb of that unwearied friend of humanity; and much as we object to the taste, we fully commend the feeling and spirit of the passage.

"The evening was drawing to a close when I approached the hill, in the bosom of which the dust of my revered countryman reposes so far from his native land. No one that has not experienced " the heart of a stranger" in a distant country, can imagine the feelings which sadden a man while standing on such a spot. It is well known that Howard fell a sacrifice to his humanity; having caught a contagious fever from some wretched prisoners at Kherson, to whose extreme need he was administering his charity and his consolations. Admiral Priestman, a worthy Briton in the Russian service, who was his intimate friend, attended him in his last moments, and erected over his remains the monument, which is now a sort of shrine to all travellers, whether from Britain or foreign countries. It is an obelisk of whitish stone, sufficiently high to be conspicuous at several miles' distance. The hill on which it stands, may be about three wersts out of the direct road, and has a little village and piece of water at its base. The whole is six wersts from Kherson, and forms a picturesque as well as interesting object. The evening having closed when I arrived at the tomb, I could not distinguish its inscription; but the name of Howard would be sufficient eulogy. At Kherson I learned that the present emperor has adopted the plans which the great philanthropist formerly gave in to the then existing government, for ameliorating the state of the prisoners. Such is the only monument he would have desired, and it will commemorate his name for ever; while that of the founder of the pyramids is forgotten-so much more imperishable is the greatness of goodness, than the greatness of power!" Vol. I. pp. 15, 16. Leaving the banks of the Ingouletz, our Author proceeded