The General Index to Vol. VII. with the Title and Table of Contents of Vol. VII. Part II. will be found in the Number for February.

Art. I. A Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constan tinople, in the Years 1808 and 1809; in which is included some Account of the Proceedings of his Majesty's Mission, under Sir Harford Jones, Bart. K. C. to the Court of the King of Persia. By James Morier, Esq. his Majesty's Secretary of Embassy to the Court of Persia. With 25 Engravings from the Designs of the Author; a Plate of Inscriptions; and three Maps; one, from the Observations of Captain Sutherland; and two drawn by Mr. Morier and Major Rennel. Royal 4to, pp. 440. Price 31. 11s. 6d. Longman and Co. 1812.

"

PERHAPS but little credit would be given, in these selfish times, to any professions of being distressed to think of the literary hardships of our posterity a century or two hence. It is too probable that this prospective sensibility is nearly confined to those philanthropic recesses, which are the abodes also of so many other virtues the garrets of reviewers. We shall decline making any large, however just, demands on the faith of our readers, in respect to the many modes of benevolent feeling cherished in these most favourite dwelling places of charity. We will say no more of the spirit that pervades those musings into which, as an exercise or indulgence of reflection beyond that measure of thought which is strictly necessary for the precise task of reviewing, we are led by individual books, or by classes of books, than that, while we are employed in the department of books of travels, it is im possible to avoid sometimes looking forward, with a small de-. gree of compassionate dismay, to the condition of our inquisitive great grandsons, with respect to that department of reading. For let it be considered what an exceedingly narrow stripe of the habitable world is usually taken in the travelling survey that results in a large and splendid volume. A man shall proceed (perhaps a thousand miles along a great road, made as straight as the nature of the country will admit, and VOL. VIII.

I

may

never once, it may be, in this long reach, divert so much as ten miles to the right or the left; and this journey too he is probably under the necessity of performing with all convenient speed. Now, how much of the world has he viewed, even considered merely as a picture to be presented to the eye? At of vision the scope some parts of his have been progress, limited, with transient exceptions, for days together, to little more than the distance of gunshot on either side; and then he has perhaps emerged to the view of a dead plain, or but a very partial and momentary sight of a distant mountain. The average extent of what he has seen, therefore, may be a space of about the same proportion on the globe, as a strong pencil line would be on a moderate sized map of it. Having seen thus much, he comes home and publishes a large and costly volume. Now, though it would be too much to predict, that, in process of time, the world will be so completely travelled and surveyed, in parallel and intersecting stripes, as that we shall have, by accumulation, a'description of literally its whole terrene surface, yet really it does seem likely that, in the course of a few generations, no inconsiderable approach will have been made toward so vast an achievement. It is evident, that travelling with a view to the publishing of travels is becoming a regular department of employment, in which a considerable number of persons are constantly engaged, and ready to engage; and that keeping a journal, with the same view, has come to be considered as a dignified, and perhaps lucrative, secondary concern with diplomatic agents-commercial adventurerssafe attendants on the march of armies-and even the mere rovers for amusement. And when we look back over the last thirty or forty years, and, from the progress of the increase of publishing travellers, take the ratio for calculating their number in time to come; we cannot but foresee, as accomplished and narrated by the aggregate of these performers, such a prodigious measure of locomotion, as, if it could be distributed in well-adjusted parallel lines, would subject a very large proportion of the habitable globe, to have its appearances brought under inspection, and at length duly reported in this and the neighbouring countries. The movements of a great number of these travellers, no doubt, will be directed to a few places of favourite resort; but even these will be from different many starting points, and with great variety and deflection in the lines of progress; while a multitude of other adventurers will boldly invade the tracts previously unexplored. If, therefore, there were a map of the world which (in addition to all the lines that might be drawn upon it to trace the routes of the publishing travellers of the last two centuries,) should be prophetically marked with a delineation of the routes of all that

}

will publish their travels during the two centuries ensuing, it may be believed this map would be so thickly chequered and darkened, as to puzzle us exceedingly to make out the names of the places inscribed on it.

But then for the reading task of the inquisitive people of future times! There will be accumulated for them several thousands of volumes of travels, to which there will continue to be monthly and weekly additions. And this mountainous pile of printed works they will have to examine, as an employ ment additional to what may more strictly be called their studies, rather than as properly a part of what may merit a denomination understood to be expressive of intellectual exertion. This vast assemblage must be regarded as a kind of amusing adjunct to the library of science, and of literaturę strictly so called. And what must be the mental work of people whose mental play is to involve so mighty a labour!

This, to be sure, is rather a foolish style of romancing; for the people at the end of the twentieth century will very likely be much of the same kind, and in the same condition, as those at the beginning of the eighteenth, in point of length of life, of multiplied wants and occupations, of indulgence in excess of sleep and idle chat, and of indisposition to let assiduous reading of any kind take up all the time that can be allowed for amusement. But how then will they possess themselves of a complete picture of the world they inhabit, when the delineation is to be composed of such a prodigious number of separate pieces? And what is to be the fate of the vast assemblage of books of travels, that will have been formed by so long and thick a series of publication, accompanied, in many instances, with all the pretension implied in expensive splendour of appearance? The obvious answer, as to those future readers, is, that, for the most part, they will and must content themselves with general books of geography, together with the books of travels of their own times, and collections of extremely brief notices and abstracts, (made by the Purchas's, the Hakluyts, the Harris's, the Pinkertons, and the Kerrs, of those times,) of some of the most remarkable travels and voyages of the preceding ages. Of course the obvious answer, as to the fate of this great tribe of books, is, that a very large proportion of them will be totally forgotten; that a number will be preserved for the libraries of the curious, solely for the beauty of their plates; that a comparatively inconsiderable number will be partially preserved as reading matter, by means of short abridgements and curious extracts, in collections; and that a few, an extremely few, in the successive stages of the series, will have the fortune to establish themselves as a kind of classics in their department, and will, for at

least some centuries, rank with the books which men pretending to general knowledge will not well be excused from reading, at some period of their lives, in an unabridged form. Perhaps no traveller will be wise or modest to promise himself very confidently for his book this flattering exemption from the destiny so general to its class. At any rate, to warrant the slightest degree of any such presumption, his work must have, in great pre-eminence, at the least some one signal recommendation. It must for instance give, and give in a bold and stri king manner, the very first authentic description of some interesting region. Or, if it describes a country previously known, it must represent with a prominence, a beauty, and a judicious selectness, surpassing all former descriptions of the place, and never equalled by subsequent ones. Or it must describe the country at the time when it was the scene of very extraordinary physical or moral events, as, of an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, an inundation, a pestilence, or of a dreadful war, a revolution, a reformation, so that the account shall form a very striking portion of history. Or, the traveller inust make profound philosophical observations on the scenes and facts he contemplates, and so give in the form of travels an assemblage of important lessons, drawn from and illustrated by the realities he describes. Or, if the interest is to arise from the mere detail of his personal adventures, either those adventures must be singular and incomparably marvellous, and the relation accompanied by some decisive proof of veracity, or the man himself must be such an extraordinary personage, and of a rank to make so conspicuous a figure in history, that it shall always be interesting to read a portion of his life simply as such, and without the aid of any thing remarkable in the occurrences themselves. That a multitude of travellers regard themselves as belonging to this last class, their books give some cause to suspect, at least if it is to be sup. posed that they anticipate for those books the high distinction of being read entire in a future age;-for it is perfectly asto nishing to see with what complacency they will fill sheet after sheet with details of the most insignificant personal proceedings or occurrences: insomuch that we turn back to the titlepage to be sure that we have not, through inadvertency, madé some mistake as to the name and quality of the man whom we find practically claiming, as soon at least as the gets out of his own country, to rank in importance with that order of mortals whose dining or going to bed, whose walking, riding, bathing, or taking coffee, whose catching cold or having the tooth-ache; are matters of grave printed report, respectfully inculcated over a whole empire or continent. It is amusing enough, to those who can draw unmingled amusement from human folly,