at three per cent. interest, sounds more formidably than one of only three hundred millions at five per cent. We therefore should gladly see realized the Professor's idea of creating no more funded capital than the amount of the loan, and making up the difference by some other arrangement. We cannot think that this could be economically done by giving a long annuity in all cases, but probably the political benefit would amply compensate any small increase of expence,

We will only add on this subject that, for a considerable time, there has been an evident disposition on the part of those who have directed our finances, to keep down as much as possible the nominal magnitude of the funded debt; and that if borrowing by a five per cent. stock has not hitherto been adopted to the extent that might be wished, it has been because, in that extent, it has usually been impracticable without great loss by depreciation.

ART. II. A Journey through Albania and other Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople, during the Years 1809 and 1810. By J. C. Hobhouse. London.

1813.

Ir to travel through Albania and Greece to the Turkish capital be an undertaking of enterprize and difficulty, let it be acknowledged too, in justice to Reviewers, that to travel through a quarto of no less than 1150 pages is a task, which if it does not exercise our patience, at least attests our perseverance. To him who enters upon a book not as his sport or recreation, but as his trade and business, a hundred or two of pages, more or less, are a serious consideration. If, therefore, Reviewers in general feel as we feel, the portentous size of the book now lying before us must have excited among our numerous fraternity no little consternation. In our progress through the work, however, these impressions have given place to others of a more agreeable kind, and we acknowledge with pleasure that the time, much as it has been, which we have thought proper to devote to Mr. Hobhouse, has been purchased by the value of his communications.

The state in which the continent has continued for many years, if it, has been fruitful in calamity, has not been without its compensations. How many young gentlemen but for this would have proceeded in the ordinary course of education, to finish by

the lessons and examples of Paris and Geneva that fatal compound of ignorance and impertinence, of sensuality and infidelity, which it is scarcely within the compass of schools and colleges, without foreign aid, to bring to perfection. By the removal of those facilities of roving abroad which used to exist, our Englishyouth are a little sifted and sorted before they can leave our shores. Idle and vacant curiosity has now no easy vent; and that bubbling and boisterous thing which issues from our public places of education, after passing through its processes of slavery and tyranny, of grammar and declamation, of vice and prejudice, is kept at home to fume away its early conceits, and to settle into some manliness of thought and behaviour before it can escape from its bounds.

The paths which now lie open to the enterprize of the traveller, are surely such as none will adventure in but those who are exceptions to the case of the young noblemen and gentlemen above alluded to. To minds uninformed, or unexcited by views of liberal curiosity, the shores of Turkey and Greece, and the voyage of the Mediterranean, present no allurements sufficient to balance against the sacrifice of ease and security involved in the undertaking. Even the vanity concerned in it, is a vanity half-excused by the worth of its object. And our morality is not so fastidious as to scruple at bestowing praise, even where the objects of such a journey are centred in the traveller himself. We still consider him as entitled to praise for his liberal love of distinction. But where views of benefit to mankind, or the actual contribution of useful knowledge, which has a right to take credit for its motives, appear to be a part of the scheme of the traveller, we cordially admit his claim to our gratitude as well as applause.

Mr. Hobhouse has placed himself upon this eminence by the dignity of his undertaking, and his manner of carrying it to its accomplishment. The narrative which he has produced bears unquestionable marks of a curious, capacious, and observant mind, and the same may be said of the poetical production of his friend Lord Byron, who accompanied him on his travels.

But it should not be forgotten, that in travelling for the laudable purpose of acquiring and diffusing the knowledge of men and things, we enter upon an intellectual commerce, which requires no inconsiderable capital. If we would draw much from the countries we visit, we should carry with us much to tender in exchange. To be provided with this merchandize, sufficient time should be taken between the completion of our education at home, and the commencement of our travels abroad, to dissipate our early prepossessions and youthful presumptions,

and to study the human character, first by becoming better acquainted with ourselves, and then, by comparing what passes within ourselves, with the motives and objects which appear to actuate the conduct of others. It is not to be expected that the foundations of any substantial knowledge can be laid in those superficial and rapid glances which foreign travel usually affords. So many impediments oppose themselves to a free communication where the medium of converse is new and embarrassing, the manners reciprocally strange, if not sometimes repelling, and the change of society frequent and abrupt, that but little, indeed, of that knowledge which may be called man-science can be added to our stock, unless our search into character has been previous ly conducted with such diligence as well as intelligence at home, as to make us dexterous in developing the moral constitution of minds, and the operation of external circumstances on the interior condition of society.

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A conviction, probably, of the little solid information in neral to be gained from the transient glimpses which travelling usually allows, induced Socrates to content himself with the li mits of the Athenian territory for his speculations on man; and to answer to him who required a reason of this peculiarity of opinion, that "stones and trees did not edify him." We should be inclined to push this sentiment a little further by observing, that in our opinion no deeper information is to be gained by the mere observation of external modes and customs.

Having thrown out these general remarks on the proper pre paration of the mind for extracting from foreign travel its most beneficial results, a preparation which implies a postponement of the undertaking to a more advanced age than is usually waited for, we shall take the liberty of supposing that some of the des ficiencies of the volume before us may be imputable to the early period of life at which it seems to have been undertaken. It were vain to expect from the most forward talents of early youth the mellow sense and sagacity produced by long acquaintance with books and men: and though the present work is written with great gravity and decorum, and is by no means wanting in excellent description and perspicuous detail, yet we think it cannot be denied that there is sometimes an emptiness in the ob servations and conclusions, together with a rawness of expression, and poverty of style, which are the common characteristics of juvenile compositions. It is only in the attempt to generalize, and when the narrator suddenly assumes the authority of the teacher, grounding aphorisms upon facts and expanding history into philosophy, that our entertaining conductor through Greece and Turkey reminds us of his want of years,

The author appears, however, to be fully sensible of the proper ends of travelling, as they have been pointed out by Bacon and Locke, and especially with that elegant purpose of it, so pleasingly alluded to by Lord Hardwicke in the 364th number of the Spectator, of improving the taste in the best authors of antiquity by seeing the places in which they lived, and of which they

wrote.

Of religion but little mention is made, and such notices as occur respecting it shew nothing of the writer's sentiments on the subject. We cannot, however, help saying, that the Turk is somewhat less a favourite with us than he seems to be with our traveller; and we have no reserve in declaring a more decided disapprobation of the religion of Mohammed, than he may have thought it consistent with his grave impartiality to profess. Begun in stratagem and continued in blood, it has ended in the per petuation of tyranny and ignorance. Some of the legendary superstitions which have been engrafted on the true religion, are mentioned in a manner which brought Mr. Gibbon's characteristic sneer rather too strongly to our minds. We trust, however, that this is only a fanciful resemblance; and we are desirous of thinking that Mr. Hobhouse is far removed from any such despicable affectation.

We cannot doubt that subsequent editions of this valuable work will give the author the opportunity of reconsidering those passages which have invited the remarks we have just made; and we can as little doubt that a capacity like that which the work in its present condition displays, will save the critic the trouble of being more particular in his censure. As Reviewers are sometimes charged with a propensity to cavilling, we will not close these introductory remarks without declaring in round terms, in justice to Mr. Hobhouse and in vindication of ourselves, that we have received as much pleasure and instruction from the perusal of these travels as from that of any others which have ever come before us. We have only now to request the reader to sit still and attentive, while we endeavour to present him with a panorama of the regions and cities which our sensible traveller has visited and illustrated.

While the author and his friend were at Malta, hesitating whether they should proceed directly to Smyrna or visit first the shores of European Turkey, a brig of war which was setting out to convoy a small fleet of merchantmen to Patras, the chief port on the western side of the Morea, and to Prevesa on the coast of Albania, decided them in taking their passage to the latter place; and their voyage from Malta accordingly commenced on the 19th of September, 1809. In a few days they found

themselves in the channel between Cefalonia and Zante, the former presenting a chain of rocks to the north, the latter a tract of low land to the south, with the lofty mountains of Albania and Morea forming the eastern termination of the prospect. The scene continued to improve till they approached the opening of the Gulf of Lepanto, and were treated with the view of Patras and the surrounding country. The minarets of the Turkish moschs glittering in the sunbeams, the verdure of the currant trees covering the shores, the woody summits of the hills in the distance, the suburbs of the city decked with gardens, and groves of orange and lemon trees, are set before the reader in very lively colours of description. Such is, indeed, the smiling face which Turkey presents along the far greater part of the long and mazy line of her painted shore, suggesting, alas to every mind whose perceptions of happiness and dignity have been ennobled by freedom and truth, feelings of disappointment and sorrow at seeing the means of enjoyment so multiplied in vain, and the characters of providential bounty nearly effaced by man's hostility to himself.

"Oh fortunatos nimium sua si bona nôrint!"

In passing northward towards Prevesa, Ithaca, now called Theaki, presented its barren shore; and two little towns were distinctly seen among the trees, with a windmill or two and a tower on the heights; and after doubling the promontory of Santa Maura, rendered memorable by the fate of Sappho and the poetry of Ovid, they landed at Prevesa, a town opposite the Ambracian Gulf, and built on a neck of land in the country formerly called Epirus. Here they were well received by the Greek acting as the English vice-consul at that town; who seems by his care about the substantial part of their entertainment to have been impressed with the notion so general on the continent respecting our countrymen, of their reverence for their stomachs.

The state of the coast of the eastern shores of the Adriatic cannot, in this nautical age, be supposed to be in any 'obscurity; but Mr. Hobhouse expatiates at considerable length on the ignorance which in all times has prevailed concerning the interior topography of Albania. Nor is this much to be wondered at, when we consider what very bad geographers the Turks themselves are, how little this country has been travelled in modern times, the various dominations to which it has been subjected, and the uniform barbarity of its inhabitants. As Mr. Hobhouse observes, "all that we have till very lately known of modern Albania is, that it is a province of European Turkey, bounded to the north and north-east by a chain of mountains, di