convictions are as deep as her moral impressions are pure; still we greatly regret that the contrary has been said and still more that is not in our power effectually to refute it.

Next in order comes Lady Morgan, and it is but justice to her to say, that from her earliest age, she has wielded her pen in defence of her unfortunate country, and Sidney Owenson in the dawn of life, was well known as a writer in defence of Irish character, long before she obtained a husband and a title. Her line, however, was very different indeed from that of her predecessor, and her Irish characters with many traits of general resemblance, had something peculiarly her own. Early imbibing the new doctrines of the French Revolution, with an unhappy innate taste for politics, all her works are tinted, we had better say stained, with these colours. She became the Jacobin of female writers in Ireland, and treated the received notions both on moral and religious subjects with equal disregard. Her 64 Saint Clair" is a revival of "La Nouvelle Heloise," and her "Glorvina" is a wild Irish girl, such as we trust has few parallels in our country. Either from ignorance or carelessness, she confounds the first principles of right and wrong, and softens down some of the most profligate characters and indecent writers of the French school into amiable "roués" or witty "savaus." It is in our own recollection what a sensation she excited, when she first promulgated those opinions in Ireland. Instead of regarding them as the light and thoughtless effusion of a young and giddy female, who meant no more than to amuse, she was magnified into some portentous and powerful engine of wickedness, destined to upturn the foundations of society. Old Giffard led the way, and the whole posse comitatus of the Quarterly followed. It was amusing to see those "potent, grave, and reverend seigneurs," with staves and stones, running after the light and airy insect, as it flitted about, with its spangled and glittering wings, sipping sweets and bitters from every flower. "Knock her down," says one,

tear her to pieces," says anothertrample her in the gutter," says a third-and they left no means untried for the purpose. She was an "impious worm," a "profligate reptile," even her person became the butt of these unmanly critics, and there was no weapon of attack unused, which fear or rage

could supply. 'Tis true our sprightly, careless ladi gave some occasion for this; but we cannot see the wisdom, as she says herself, of "breaking a butterfly upon a wheel," or giving consequence to things which, if left to themselves, would expire by their own insignificance. Notwithstanding these aids of notoriety, they are now, after a few years forgotten, as if they never had been.

With respect to her sketches of Irish character, they deserve to survive the oblivion of her politics and opinions. We dwell with pleasure on her wit, her humour, her inimitable drollery, her quick and keen perception of character, her singular felicity of description, and her fecundity of inventing fictitious details; and wherever democracy and scepticism do not peep out, we know no one better deserv ing our meed of praise. We would instance her "O'Donnel" as one of the most excellent among our standard novels. The Sketches of men, manners, and scenes in Ireland are admirable; and we know not where to find a more correct and interesting picture of an Irish gentleman, struggling with adverse fortune, than she has painted in her hero. His high honour, deep sensibility, stern independence, and warm benevolence, are such as we assent to with our whole heart. He is as gentle as he is spirited, as sincere as he is kind, as candid as he is courteous. deplores the unfortunate state of his own country, but he detracts not from the generosity, sympathy, and noble qualities of his English friends. He is not the coarse, rude, turbulent, cunning, selfish demagogue, which we remember Miladi once eulogised as the beau ideal of an Irishman; her O'Donnel is not her O'Connell. But we are not writing a review of her works, but a brief notice of her literary character. We dismiss her, therefore, with Ben Jonson's declaration of Shakespeare "He said he never blotted out a linewould he had blotted out a thousand."

Of the third and last lady of our category, and the immediate subject of our consideration, we have now to speak. Mrs. S. C. Hall holds an intermediate position between the reputation of her predecessors. With a mind apparently not so stored, or a capability of sustaining the varied incidents of a long and continued narrative of fiction as Miss Edgeworth's, she possesses a power of brief and sketchy tales which is inimitable. We know

nothing more true to nature than her first published sketches of Irish character. They gave such strong features of resemblance and probability to all the lighter and more prominent traits of the inmates of Irish cabins, less inflated than Miladi Morgan's, but more minute and simple than Miss Edgeworth's; and her pictures are such graphic representations of what is most laughable and lovely among her poor people, that their very faults are made so interesting, their absurdities so amiable, that the risibility they excite in the reader is the smile of good will, which a kind person bestows on failings which he regards with as much love as pity.

But Mrs. Hall has higher claims as a writer than those of a mere delineator of character and amusing details, by qualities in which both her predecessors seem deficient. There is a holiness and purity, a right thinking in every thing she says, which favourably contrasts her with her celebrated rivals. We recognise an innocence and delicacy in her cheerfulness, unlike what has been called the "smutty drollery" of the one, and a vein of unostentatious piety flowing through all she writes, which her admirers regret they cannot find in the admirable works of the other. There is nothing sectarian in this—it marks no particular form of faith, but seems the overflowing of that "meekness, gentleness, long suffering, forbearance of one another, in love," which quietly and almost imperceptibly issues from a pure and deep fountain of religious feeling. As a quality of this feeling, her anxious wish seems to be to do good and be useful, as far as her means enable her. Did she possess wealth and power, we feel a conviction that they would be exerted in this cause, but we imagine she has neither at her command, and so contributes the only mite that Providence has left at her disposal, to ameliorate and improve the condition of those to whom she wishes so well, and in whom she feels so deep and lively an interest. Her Irish Tales are directed at the prominent failings of her poor country, with the amiable view and hope of correcting them, and she has chosen for her appropriate motto, the Christian precept of the apostle, "mind not high things, but condescend

to men of low estate." To render them more extensively known and useful, they are published in a cheap form in a popular journal, so that every person desirous of promoting their good effect, may purchase, beside much other useful and entertaining matter, one of those Tales for three halfpence, to circulate among the poor peasantry of his neighbourhood. We know the salutary effects of Miss Hamilton's Cottagers of Glenburnie," in correcting many faulty things in the domestic habits of the Scotch, and on a limited scale, Mary Leadbetter's "Cottage Dialogues," in some counties in Ireland, and we may reasonably look for a similar result from Mrs. Hall's "Stories of the Irish Peasantry,"

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The titles of the stories are, 1st, "It's only a Drop ;" 2nd, "Sure it's Always So;" 3rd, "Time Enough;" 4th, "It's only a Bit of a Stretch;" 5th, "Do You Think I'd Inform;" 6th, "The Landlord Abroad;" 7th, "The Landlord at Home ;" and, 8th, "It's only the Bit and the Sup ;" and, in these subjects, not only the most injurious, but we had almost said, all the bad habits which mar their domestic comforts, are included. Their Intemperance in the first; their Indisposition to change or improvement in the second; their Habits of procrastination and waste of time in the third; their Proneness to exaggerate and deviate from the truth in the fourth; their Horror at the prosecution of a criminal, and the impunity they afford to guilt in the fifth; the misery and blessings of absentee or resident landlords in the sixth and seventh; their reckless waste of their own substance, and improvidence of comfort in the last.

These are all so excellent, that we are tempted to extract one, but as they are circulated in so cheap a form, we advise all our readers to procure them for themselves, and we think some of our "Landlords at Home," could not do better service to their tenants than by circulating them extensively. Each tale illustrates some peculiarity or evil habit of poor Pat, and, we have little doubt, that these admirable little narratives will have more effect in eradicating them, than bushels of advice.

THE very elegant volume before us is the journal of an English traveller, during an excursion in Asia Minor, in the early part of last year. An accurate description of the interior of this highly interesting country is much wanting, and our knowledge of its geography is still very imperfect, as the several maps already published too plainly exhibit. The west and northwest coasts have, it is true, by their connection and commercial intercourse with Europe, become, of late years, better known; and Captain Beaufort has laid down a chart of a part of its southern shores, the whole of which has been completed last year by Lieut. Graves, in her Majesty's surveying ship, Beacon. But, of the inland country, our information has remained in the imperfect state left by Pococke, Van Egmont, Chandler, and Col. Leake, with some additions by the Rev. Mr. Arundel, whose researches were, however, mostly confined to the ecclesiastical remains of more modern times, and have done little to establish the topography of its ancient cities.

A country so famed in story and in song, though seldom visited by the tourist, has within it countless objects of interest, well calculated to arouse the enthusiasm of the traveller who cherishes the classic remembrances of its early Greek, and subsequent Roman Colonies; its Sparta, Troy, Patera, and Telmessus, with the recollections of its Xanthus and Mæander, its Olympus, Taurus, and Mount Ida, and the oracles and warriors, the statesmen and historians that flourished on its shores. And when we add to this, its connection with the early history of Christianity, and its being the theatre of apostolic preaching, we feel a strong desire to follow the footsteps of the traveller to Sardis and Ephesus, Thyatira and Colloss; through mountain scenes and forest glades, among a chivalrous peasantry, bold and hardy as the pines that climb the rocks of their native fastnesses; and the stern grandeur of whose rugged hills gives increased effect to the fertile valleys and flowery plains beneath.

Mr. Fellows left Smyrna on the

22nd of February for Magnesia, a poor and ill-thriving place; but, fol lowing the course of the Hyllus, he describes the land as excellent, with scarcely a stone to be met for miles, and producing luxuriant crops of cot ton and corn.

His route is continued on by Thyatira to Pergamos, eight miles to the east of which, at a small resting-place, he found a Sarcophagus, which was used as a water trough, and an inscription, built up in a neighbouring fountain, which, as it appears to relate to some of the ceremonies of mourning among the ancient Greeks, not before noticed, we here tran. scribe :

"MAY IT BE FORTUNATE."

"In the treasureship of Demetrius, on the second day of the month, Thargelion, Alexon, son of Damon, declared it to be a law for relations by marriage (?) that the female mourners should wear clean grey cloth; that the men and boys engaged in the mourning should also wear grey, unless they prefer white; that they should perform the rites appointed by law for the departed, at the latest, in three months; that the men should terminate their mourning in the fourth month, and the women in the fifth; that the women, or the trains appointed in the law, as a matter of necessity, should then rise from the lamentation, and go forth; that the Gynæeconomus chosen by the people should, at the purification of the Thesmophoria, pray for prosperity and the enjoy half of those men who abide by, and those ment of their existing possessions, on be women who obey this law, and imprecate the contrary on those men and women who do not obey; and that the treasurer chosen after Demetrius bearing a crown, should inscribe this law upon two pillars, and place one of them before the gates of the Temple of (Ceres) Thesmophorus, and the other before the Temple of Artemis (i. e. Diana) Lochia."

pally along the coast to Assos, long From Pergamos his track lay princiremarkable for the number and grandeur of its tombs. Here, he says,

"I then entered the Via Sacra, or street of tombs, extending for miles. Some of the tombs still stand in their original beautiful forms; but most have been opened, and the lids are lying near the

The walls of the town he describes as partaking, in the lower part, of the ancient Cyclopean, and having been repaired and built over in a later style. A similar kind of wall, exhibiting two distinct eras, will be found in the Arcopolis of Athens, where the tryglyphs in its base remain since the Persian conquest; and also in the east wall of Jerusalem, the upper part of which has been added by its modern masters, while its lower is of the massive Cyclopean, in use long before the Christian

era.

Our author now enters the Troad, but adds nothing of consequence to the descriptions of the memorable city of Priam; but as to the question of its site still in dispute among antiquaries, he says, speaking of the heights of Boonabassey, or what is called Old Troy, from its being the first locality fixed on:

"We saw on the stony top of a hill, (certainly very small for the site of a city) two piles of loose stones, and think it very questionable whether put together by nature or art; and if by art, a doubt may arise as to the purpose, for I have often seen in mountain districts, piles as large, heaped up by the villagers, as a testimony of respect, upon the spot where some too adventurous brothers met with an untimely end."

At the Dardanelles, Mr. F. embarked in the French steamer for Constantinople, when, providing himself with the necessary firman, &c. he skirted the eastern shores of the sea of Marmora, and crossing over the Dil-Ferry, re-entered Asia Minor, and proceeded with occasional deviations, nearly due south to the gulph of Adalia, by this means intersecting the base of this vast peninsula, and traversing a country interesting from the number of its

remains, and from its previous unexplored state.

The

The first place of any note he touched at, was Isnic the ancient Nicæa. The approach to this place he describes as very beautiful. scene varied by the garden, plains covered with evergreens, or arched with the violet, hyacinth, and anemone, in the distance the snowy range of the Olympus, before which were a series of lower hills that rose from the sides of the placid lake Ascaria, at whose southern extremity stood the ruined towers of Nicæa. He here mentions three square towers, the white marble stones, of which have their edges grooved or bevelled, and this groove, he is inclined to suppose, may have been filled with metal to increase the splendour of the building; but such a form of joining stones together was long practised by the Greeks, where no such substance would possibly have been introduced; and such is very well shown in the walls of Mycena at Argos.

Among the many inscriptions copied by W. F. few will be more valued than that from one of the gates of this city, a description and most accurate drawing of which he has subjoined. About one third of the stone on which this was cut has remained in situ over the gate-way, and was many years ago given to the world by Pococke in his Inscriptiones Antique, and afterwards in 1818, by Von Hammer- "Umblick auf einer Reise nach Brussa."

Mr. F. found the remainder of this inscription on four stones, three of which he found in a neighbouring ditch, and one close by, lying on its face. When placed together, they were found to correspond, and to complete the hitherto unfinished and disputed inscription. Nice or Nicea has many associations connected with its Christian history, for two celebrated ecclesiastical councils were held here, the first of which, under Constantine in 325, is said to be that at which the Nicene creed was formed.

From hence our author pursued his route to Cotyæium, where the most valuable part of his work commences; as from this point he was able to correct some of the geographical errors of our maps, as well as to add

to our topographical knowledge. Of the former he mentions Doganlu or Dooanlu. To discover the true site of this place, he pursued a course south-east; and passing a tributary stream of the river Thymbius, after a ride of 20 miles, arrived at a valley, for eight miles of which it was a continued series of tombs and sepulchral caves, with some scattered columns and other marbles, indicative of a very extensive city. At 28 miles S. E. of Cotyæium, he found Dooaslan, the wished for, but misplaced spot. Returning to his former path he diverges to the S. W. to visit the recently discovered ruins of Ezani, which he supposed to have been a small Roman

town of the time of Adrian.

"But I now find from its architecture, that it appears to be purely a Greek city, though, perhaps, afterwards possessed by the Romans, as there are some Latin inscriptions. The situation of the town is not so striking as the Greeks generally chose, but it has its gentle hills one of which was its Acropolis, crowned with a highly finished Ionic temple; eighteen columns, with one side and end of the cella, are still standing."

Our author gives two highly finished drawings of this temple, and a ground plan of the theatre and most remarkable objects in the city, with several inscriptions.

Again retracing his steps to Cotyæium, he continues his southward route through Phrygia to the lower lake Ascania, where proceeding in a more eastern direction to Sparta, whence by the ridge of Laurus he arrived at the village of Boodrom, where hearing of some ruins he climbed the mountains through a craggy wilderness, where he discovered the vast ruins of a city which he supposes to be the ancient Sagalassus. He thus describes it :-

"What was my surprise to find on ascending, the extensive remains of a superb city, containing seven or eight temples and three other long buildings, ornamented with cornices and columns, and with rows of pedestals on either side! I know not what these buildings may have been, but from their forming long avenues, I may imagine they were agoras. On one side of a higher hill, is one of the most beautiful and perfect theatres I ever saw or heard of; the seats and the greater part of the proscenium

remain; the walls of the front have partly fallen, but the splendid cornices and sta tuary are but little broken.

"From its peculiar situation I judge that this theatre was entered only on one side, where appeared three or four great vomitories together.

city, with its costly tombs and its inscriptions, both cut in the solid rocks and on the sarcophagi is ancient Greek, without a vestige of Roman or Christian character."

It is much to be regretted that so capable an artist as Mr. Fellows did not make some sketches of this place.

Twenty-four miles to the southeast of Sagalassus is the Turkish village of Boojak; and ten miles to the north-east of this, upon the top of a high promontory of Mount Taurus,

"Stood one of the finest cities that possibly ever existed, now presenting One magnificent wrecks of grandeur. pile of temples, theatres, and buildings vieing with each other in splendour."

The style is Corinthian, and he does not think there is any trace of successors to its earliest occupants. These ruins he conceives to be those of Selge, and speaks of them in terms such as may be excused in the enthusiastic admirer of his own discovery.

The blue waters of the Mediterranean are now in sight; the broad gulf of Adalia lies before us; and the coast of Syria and Karamania have been so well described by others that with two or three exceptions little remains to be done by the modern tra

veller.