the emissaries who were despatched by one of the caliphs in search of the castle of Gog and Magog, two gigantic potentates whose domicile was somewhere in the north of Asia These veracious missionaries, after spending some moons in quest of this stupendous fortress, actually found it-as our readers will readily believe, when they learn the details with which these worthy pilgrims thought proper to gratify the curiosity of their master. The walls, formed of immense masses of iron soldered with brass, rose to mountain height, and seemed to touch the sky. The gates, fifty cubits high, were also of iron, and the bolts and bars were of prodigious size. It is hardly worth while to inquire whether these gentry were poets, poltroons, or liars; but their narrative is cited from Edrisi, and unless he accompanies it with a strong expression of incredulity, we should not be much disposed to put faith in his acumen where more important matters are concerned.

6

The earliest European attempts to explore northern Asia, seem to have been made by singular personages, and on an extraordinary occasion. The celebrated Tartar chief, Jenghiz Khan, after having established an extensive authority, by force of arms, among his countrymen, and ravaged, at the head of his Scythian cavalry, the rich and pacific realm of China, determined on invading Europe, and led his hordes across the whole Asiatic continent, until his personal career was arrested by death on the shores of the Caspian. His successors prosecuted his plans, and after devastating Russia, Poland, and Hungary, entered Silesia. The duke of that province encountered them with the most determined gallantry; and although the result was fatal to himself and his army, this first specimen of European warfare was so little to the Tartar taste, that the accursed crew immediately vanished.' Apprehensions were, however, felt of their return' in greater force, and the Pope seems to have felt himself called upon, as the spiritual chief of Christendom, to take measures of prevention. The esprit de corps seems to have prevailed over the suggestions of a more energetic policy; and the most effective measure that presented itself to the statesmen of the Vatican, consisted in the despatch of a company of Franciscans, half ambassadors, half missionaries, who were to arrest the threatened invaders by adequate representations of the papal majesty and supremacy. Of the two parties in which this ecclesiastical embassy set forward, the first took the direct road to Persia, with orders to deliver a prohibitory message to the commander of the first Tartar camp that might fall in its way. After encountering many dangers, mainly through the unaccountable simplicity of the friars, who expected that

the Tartars would tremble like themselves at the menaces of Rome, the mandate of the Pope was delivered very ineffectually, and the legates succeeded in accomplishing their safe return. The second division appears to have consisted of more prudent and sagacious men, who obtained access to the great Khan, and conducted themselves with tolerable discretion. The first authentic accounts of this dreaded nation were brought to Europe by these adventurous friars. Carpini, one of the travellers, gives many particulars of this wild and predatory race, to which all subsequent information has added but little.

'

6

He paints first their outward appearance, in which, he says, They are unlike to all other people. For they are broader between • the eyes and the balls of their cheeks, than men of other nations <be. They have flat and small noses, little eyes, and eye-lids standing straight upright; they are shaven on the crowns like priests. The dress is the same for both sexes, comprehending neither cloaks, hats, nor caps; but consists of jackets framed after a strange manner, of buckram, scarlet, or baldakins. They have little grain or bread; on which point a little millet dissolved in "water, and drunk in the morning, will satisfy them for the whole day. They have no cows, but he thinks more horses and mares than all the world beside. Their power of enduring hunger is said to be very wonderful; after having spent a day or two without a morsel, they sing and are merry as if they had eaten their bellies full.' But Carpini was most of all surprised to find among these fierce and savage warriors, manners much more polished and courteous than he had ever witnessed in his native country. He says, they are more obedient unto their lords and masters, than any other clergy and lay-people in the whole world. They seldom or never fall out among themselves, and as for fightings and brawlings, they never happen among them. There be in a manner no con⚫tentions among them; and although they use commonly to be drunken, yet do they not quarrel in their drunkenness. One of them honoureth another exceedingly, and bestoweth banquets very familiarly and liberally. No one of them despiseth another, but helpeth and furthereth him as much as conveniently he can' They are so honest, that the doors of their tents and waggons are left constantly open, and the use of locks and bars is unknown. The rules of modesty are scarcely ever violated, even in words. Nothing, therefore, seems to be more praiseworthy than the conduct which they observe towards each other. But towards other nations, the said Tartars be most insolent, and they scorn and set at nought all • other noble and ignoble persons whatsoever.''

The arrangement and discipline of the army are stated to have been perfectly organized, with a regular subordination of rank, from the generalissimo down to the commander of ten. Carpini, however, though entirely trust-worthy to the extreme

limits of his own personal knowledge, has committed his reputation for shrewdness, by too implicitly crediting various 'marvellous adventures' related by the Tartars, and confirmed by the indubitable authority of certain clergymen of Russia.'

These miracles appear, I think, to have been invented by the Tartars to cover the disgraces of certain overthrows which they had experienced. Thus, on approaching Caucasus, they found a mountain of adamant, which drew into it all the arrows and darts of iron which were discharged in its neighbourhood. Attempting to penetrate this mountain, they encountered a huge black cloud, which prevented all passage. The true state of the case probably is, that an army accustomed only to the dead level of their vast plains, were unfit to contend amid the rocks and defiles of this vast chain of mountains. Again, in a country lying on the ocean, they found monsters with men's heads, but dog's faces, who spake as it were two 'words like men, but at the third they barked like dogges.' The same story is repeated in another shape, of a country where the females were of the human form, and the males of the canine. These last rubbed themselves in the snow, till the ice formed a panoply, from which the weapons of the Tartars rebounded as if they had lighted upon stones.' This evidently carries us to the shores of the Eastern ocean, and the Kamtschadale dogs; and we may conjecture that the frozen barrier of nature had there proved too powerful for Tartar invasion. I cannot so readily solve the account of a nation met with in their march towards Armenia, each of whom had only one arm and one leg, so that to draw a bow required the efforts of two. These persons ran with incredible swiftness, sometimes hopping on their single foot, sometimes with hand and foot together. Another country was placed so near the sun's rising, that people could not endure the terrible noise, and were fain to stop their ears, lest they 'should hear that dreadful sound.' Many of the army, it is said, who had not taken the due precaution, perished in consequence, and the remainder judged it wisest to evacuate so perilous a region. In reporting this fiction, however, our friar may justify himself by the example of the philosophic pen of Tacitus. A more curious statement occurs with regard to the people of what he calls India Major, or the dominions of Presbyter John. They had, he says, images of copper, with fire in them, which they placed on horseback, while a man with a pair of bellows rode behind. When the horses were drawn up in battle array, the men, he says, laide I wote not what 6 upon the fire within the images, and blew strongly with their 'bellowes. Whereupon it came to passe, that the men and the horses were burnt with wilde fire, and the ayre was darkened with 'smoke.' From this passage it seems certain, that gunpowder had been invented, and was used in the east of Asia, at a time when it was yet unknown in Europe, or at least when the discovery was so much in its infancy as to leave no room to suspect, that it could have been transmitted from thence to the eastern regions.'

The embassy of Clavijo to the court of the famous Timour,

is ably abstracted from the original Spanish, and communi cates much important and interesting information respecting the personal and official character of that powerful chief. The travels of Marco Polo are also distinctly described. The valuable details furnished by Oderic of Portenau, are pointed out as the probable text of Sir John Mandeville's portentous exaggerations; and the exquisite inventions of the illustrious knight himself are fairly exhibited. The earlier travellers in the East have, assuredly, been sufficiently lavish of questionable embellishment, although their extravagances appear, in the main, to have resulted from honest credulity, rather than from interested, humorous, or ostentatious knavery. But our dashing countryman hesitates at nothing; he appropriates to his own use the discoveries of others, and re-issues them in such a form as to render them the coinage of his own pure 'brain.' Thus, if previous adventurers had spoken yaguely, and from report, of a Christian monarch reigning in the central regions of Asia, Mandeville seizes at once upon Prester John, makes personal acquaintance with him, and actually sees him seated upon the throne of India, surpassing in splendour all other sovereigns, and entertaining at his table twelve archbishops, and two hundred and twenty bishops.' Not a few of his predecessors had heard of pigmy nations; but it was reserved for the fortunate knight of St. Albans, to travel through their country, and to be welcomed to those fairy confines by the dances and gambols of that light-heeled race. It was his peculiar hap, moreover, while others had only heard of such things, to verify from actual observation the fact, that there were in existence men whose stature reached the height of twenty-four feet.

Equally fatal to our author's credit are his attempts to improve upon and enlarge the wonders related by others. Oderic mentions the sea of sand,'—no unapt image of those deserts of moving sand which cover a great extent of the east of Persia. This is not enough for Mandeville, unless the sea of sand have a river of rocks, which, after traversing a great extent of country, discharges itself into it. He is not ashamed to add, that this sea contains fishes greater in number, and more exquisite in quality, than are found in any one composed of the watery element. It happened, unluckily too for Sir John, that the geographical notices in these early narratives are too vague and desultory to give any distinct idea of the relative positions of the different countries. It was inconsistent, however, with his high pretensions to learning and wisdom, not to treat the subject with greater precision; and, in attempting to do so, he has fallen into the most unheard-of blunders, such as could by no possibility have been committed by a real traveller. It needs only be mentioned, that he describes India as situated fifty days' journey to the east of Cambalu

(Pekin), and thereupon enters upon a long lamentation on its distance and difficulty of approach, compared with China I say nothing of his long narrative, borrowed from the romances of chivalry, respecting the exploits of Duke Oger the Dane, nor of the account of them which he saw painted on the walls of the palace at Java.'

Of all those early adventurers whose enterprising spirit led them in quest of fame and fortune to the shores of Asia, the most celebrated is that liar of the first magnitude,' Ferdinand Mendes Pinto. From the imputed excess of falsehood and exaggeration, he has, however, been long since exculpated. Subsequent discoveries have confirmed his statements, and much of his narrative is of a kind which no man was likely to give gratuitously, since it places him in a very unenviable situation as an accomplice in unprincipled and ferocious transactions. The leading circumstances of his career are told with great spirit by Mr. Murray. The various general travels' and voyages made at different periods, both to the interior and to the coasts of Asia, are ably analysed and abridged throughout the remainder of the first volume; while the second and third are occupied with descriptions of the leading natuIral divisions of Asia, and the travels performed through each.'

As it would not be practicable to compress within our limits even an abstract of these three volumes of close analysis; we have preferred giving a more extended view of a particular portion of the general inquiry; and our readers will be fully competent, from the specimens we have cited, to form their own estimate of the Editor's style and abilities. Though the volumes have evidently been hastily written, and exhibit much carelessness in the composition, the materials are well selected, and the narrative is always interesting. Mr. Murray is never dull; he writes with ease and vivacity; and he possesses in perfection the art of unravelling a complicated detail, and of enlivening a heavy story, by the seasonable introduction of judicious criticism, or of shrewd and sarcastic comment.

Art. III. 1. The Agamemnon of Eschylus. A Tragedy. Translated from the Greek. By Hugh Stuart Boyd. 8vo. pp. x. 78. London. 1823.

2. The Agamemnon of Eschylus. Translated by John Symmons, Esq. A.M. 8vo. pp. xxviii. 156. Price 8s. London. 1824. HE literature of a nation is intimately connected with its religion. This is particularly the case with poetry, of

THE