ever combining into any very formidable shape. Such an event can only occur when some individual, super-eminently endowed with talents and courage, like a Chengiz or a Timour, arises to force into union substances naturally repellant; and it is to this disunion that Persia owes the comparative security she enjoys at present in this quarter. The nature of their government, if such a term can be properly applied to so unorganized a condition of society, approaches to the patriarchal; although the teers or subdivisions into separate families be very numerous and small, and do not, I believe, in the least admit of any foreign interference or claim to superiority of one over the other.

Even in the minor occurrences of life this spirit of equality and simplicity prevails. There is but little distinction of rank at any time observed; and even the deference paid to the claims of age and relationship among the other nations of the East are here much less regarded. The greatest as well as the least enter a tent with the words of peace, and offering their hand perhaps to those whom they know, in token of amity, sit down without regard to place or person, or any of those ceremonies and etiquettes so scrupulously adhered to by the rules of Persian politeness; and they sit and loll, or stretch themselves out, quite at their ease, and evidently without being sensible of violating any received rule of good manners.' (Pp. 262, 263.)

The prisoners taken in their predatory expeditions are either sent to Khyvah for sale, or purchased by travelling merchants for the inhabitants of that place and of Bokhara, where the treatment they meet with is so humane, that the poorer captives, who cannot afford to pay the ransom demanded, generally enjoy more security of life and limb than they could expect on returning to their native homes in Persia.

Our limits do not afford space for any specimens of the author's personal narrative; and we regret this the more, because his details respecting the domestic manners and usages of the Persians, which are known to have undergone little change in the lapse of centuries, are at once picturesque and dramatic. They form no inanimate commentary on a tale of the olden time, which every body has of late been reading. In some of his interviews with princes, governors, and khans, this traveller reminds us of Sir Kenneth of the Dormant Leopard among the nobles of Araby in the tent of Salah-ed-deen; and there is an easy fearlessness in his remarks on persons as well as things, which corresponds with one of the leading traits in that fictitious character.

We must not omit to notice the important corrections made in the geography of Persia; of which some idea may

be

be formed on reference to the map accompanying the volume, where it will be found, on comparing it with others, that Tehran has been moved thirty miles more to the eastward; Semnoon and Damghan still farther; while the positions of Nishapore and Mushed have been altered nearly two and three degrees respectively in longitude; and that of Mushed in latitude a whole degree. A table of latitudes and longitudes, fixed from the author's own observations, is given in the Appendix, which contains an abundance of geographical information relative to Persia, collected from authentic sources.

MONTHLY CATALOGUE,
FOR JULY, 1825.

Art. 9.

POETRY.

Miscellaneous Poems. By Robert Power. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. 14s. Boards. Simpkin and Marshall. 1824. This is an elegant chaplet of little poetical flowers to adorn Mary, and Fanny, and Ianthe, and Anna, and the rest of those exquisite beauties who make up the seraglio of a modern poet. Occasionally, however, the author "moralizes his song" with, other themes than "faithful loves." The following are two stanzas from a poem intitled Reflections on the Sea-shore."

With gay enchantment, like a fairy dream,

Along the coast the glittering scene extends →→→→
Sweet smiles o'er tower and fort the solar beam
Afar the golden tissue spreads, and blends
The soft and bold in one harmonious gleam.
Now sorrow flies her boding vision ends-
And on the brow of grief reflected seems,
The lucid smile that thro' the morning streams.

< Nature divine! magnificence of earth!

ཉ་་

Most fair and beauteous world, whose sovereign power

O'er every passion (though of savage birth)

Can stem the torrents that tempestuous lower —!

But most of sorrow, when the golden worth
Of thousands cannot buy one little hour

Of peace; nor yet an eastern monarch sway,
With all his gems the sunshine of a day!'

We must be excused for passing over very many pleasing specimens of easy-flowing versification, as well as of elegant and spirited flights of fancy. The following extract from an Anacreontic evinces, we think, great poetical capacity

• I send

• I send thee, love, a blushing rose

I

In heavenly fragrance sweet it blows;
And I have search'd the blooming bower,
To send my love a thornless flower :-
Oh, useless toil! oh, luckless morn!
On every rose I found a thorn.
And shall I send this rose, said I,
To blush beneath my Mary's eye?
For oft, 'tis said, that love discloses
Lurking thorns, like briary roses;
And these, that every stem invest,
May pierce her bosom, wound its rest;
And she may think its pang may prove
The herald of inconstant love.
As thus I stood, in doubtful fear,
While yet the rose was blushing near,
The place a balmy fragrance fill'd,
And softer zephyrs round me thrill'd;
Waved to their breath the conscious flowers,
And deeper crimson flush'd the bowers,
Warn'd by the rose's blushing vest,

And by my anxious throbbing breast,
I knew some form or spirit fair,

With step divine, was haunting there.
She came, she came! and every breeze
Wafted Eolian melodies:

She came, the queen of every bower,
To vindicate her sweetest flower.
A beauteous troop of winged boys
Her ever-changing vest employs;
Who, as the roses breathe and die,
With living blooms its folds supply.
She spoke, and every passing air
Was warm'd with honey'd fragrance there.
As thus she spoke, soft music found
Its sweetest spell in every sound:
"Forbear, impassion'd youth! forbear
To chide the thorns my roses wear;
For he who loves must learn to prove
The rose is but the type of love.
The brilliant lapse of fleeting youth,
Tho' dear to love, and dear to truth,
Is doom'd to sorrows, doom'd to fears,
Weeps like the rose in morning's tears,
When o'er the hand that culls the flower
Falls its bright gems in dewy shower.
He knows no joy who feels no sorrows
Love half its sweets from weeping borrows.
In rapture's eye the lucid tear

-

Will flow from joy, and gem its sphere:

"Tis the warm sigh that rends the breast,
Sweet'ning its dearest hour of rest.
Lives there a heart that did not prove
A tear, or sigh, or grief, in love?
Go, hapless youth! thou ne'er shalt find
The hopes that thrill a feeling mind:
Ah, maid unblest! no heart for thee
Shall beat with kindred sympathy!
For when to love thro' grief you rove,
Its pangs have pow'r to sweeten love:
And he who scorns the painful woe,
Which lovers know, and fondly know,
Shall never taste those joys at last
That dearly pay for troubles past;
As he shall ne'er possess the rose,

Who flies the thorn that round it grows."

LA

A

In this lighter department of poesy it is that the author is most at his ease. He has contrived to hitch into a note, in his second volume, a translation of Anacreon's Ode to the Dove, beginning Epausa λa, which has been often attempted, but never, as we have found, with more felicity than by Mr. P. It is, however, somewhat paraphrastically Englished; and probably the utter impossibility of translating with tolerable delicacy the message carried by the dove to Bathyllus rendered the omission of the passage inevitable.

We are sorry to be confined from adding this and many other pieces with which we have felt highly pleased; and, on taking leave of Mr. P. for this time, we cheerfully recommend to the admirers of soft and sweet numbers the volumes before us, which bespeak a mind familiar with the purest models of the gayer and lighter kinds of poesy.

EDUCATION.

Art. 10. A Practical German Grammar; or, a new and easy Method of acquiring the German Language. By John Rowbotham. 12mo. pp. 360. 6s. 6d. Boards. Baldwin and Co. 1824.

All grammars must have much in common, now that so many have been written for all languages. Wendeborn and Render, among others, have already laid down the principal rules of the German language; the former at more and the latter at less extent than Mr. Rowbotham. A native of Germany is most likely to compose with precision his German examples; and a native of England will probably bring out more pointedly those dissimilarities of the two languages, which are apt to embarrass the young English student. Hence we feel inclined to exhort the learner to begin with a short grammar, neglecting at first the exceptions and anomalies, and endeavoring to catch the leading analogies: afterward, when his progress is considerable, he may study a comprehensive grammar of detail.

The

The present Grammar is adapted for the use of a schoolmaster rather than for that of a scholar who solitarily attempts the study of German. It contains a great deal of praxis, and a large collection of examples and exercises, in which the nouns and verbs are quoted in the nominative and infinitive, and which the pupil is to translate into their oblique cases and moods: but the correct form of the sentence is not recorded; so that, without a teacher skilled in the language, the reader would be unable to correct his own composition.

Some of the examples are incorrect; for instance, p. 273., Das ist mein, nicht dein, freund, ought to have been translated, That is mine, not thine, friend, but is here translated, That is mine, not thy friend.' And, again, at p. 339., Lassen sie uns Deutsch sprechen, ought to have been translated, Allow us to speak German, but is here translated, Let us speak German,' as if the text had been Sprechen wir Deutsch. If a new edition of this Grammar should ever be prepared, we advise the author to employ a native of Germany to revise the German quotations, several of which require emendation.

Art. 11. A Philological Grammar of the English Language; in a Series of Lessons. Containing many original and important Observations on the Nature and Construction of Language; on the comparative Merits of more than One Hundred Treatises on English Grammar; on the various new and popular Modes of Teaching; and on the Necessity of examining the Principles of Grammars and Grammarians. By Thomas Martin. 12mo. pp. 400. Rivingtons, &c. 1824.

This Grammar is full of exertions to depreciate the labors of former writers on the subject. At pp. 10, 11, 12., almost every grammatical writer is attacked; Grant is by implication called absurd; and Murray is said to carry absurdity still farther. At p. 25., Lewis's Grammar is said to be a disgrace to the author, a nuisance to the public, and a discredit to the age and nation.' To give some idea of Mr. Martin's innovations, we copy his fourth lesson:

A digraph consists of two vowel characters, written together, and requiring to be uttered by a single effort of the voice.

A digraph may be the representative either of a simple or of a compound sound.

When two pure vowel sounds are inseparably connected, the union is denominated a diphthong.

A digraph which represents two sounds is commonly called a proper diphthong.

A digraph whose constitutent vowels coalesce in a single sound is usually termed an improper diphthong.

Every improper diphthong agrees in sound with at least one of the fifteen varieties of vowels, and some of them are of several varieties.

The English language contains twenty-six digraphs: five of these represent proper diphthongs, eight improper diphthongs, and the remaining thirteen are of both kinds.'