had concluded it to proceed from the influx of the tide. Our author went from Bagdat down the Euphrates to Bussora. Bussora, soon after his arrival, was attacked by the arms of the Persian monarch in revenge for the English having removed their trade to this city from Bushcar. The Persians were repulsed in an onset made in the night-time, and many of their soldiers killed; the mangled heads of whom were the next day publicly exposed to the scorn, derision, and hatred of the Bagdatians. A small squadron of mercantile English, who might have been of the greatest service to the Mussulmans during the siege, with the magnanimity that usually marks our conduct in the East, as soon as they had plunged their allies in distress, fairly turned their backs and fled from them. This, indeed, it may be said in extenuation of their behaviour, was in imitation of an Arabian sheik, who by his perfidy or cowardice had nearly betrayed the city into the hands of the Persians. Baseness is contagious: and experience has shewn that the climate of the East is peculiarly fitted to spread and circulate it among Englishmen. Our author next visited Bushcar and the isles of Baharin, where he saw the pearlfishery, so often described by others, and so confusedly by himself, that it is useless to attempt an account of it. From the Baharin isles he went to Bombay, where the Company's marine was upwards of twenty in number, and these not more than sufficient to protect the coasting-trade from pirates, with which the Indian sea abounds. His next voyage was along the Malabar coast. He accordingly describes the city of Seringapatam, although it is evident he never saw it; and asserts, contrary to the fact, that it is built in the middle of an extensive lake. From the Malabar coast he sailed to Surat, and saw trees of forty yards in circumference, and Banyans cultivating them, that never feed on the flesh of animals. He afterwards returns to Bombay, and thence visits Mocha, Sues, and Cairo. At Cairo, he was witness of the solemnity of cutting the dam of the Nile, and heard the increase of that celebrated

river daily proclaimed by blind men with red flags in their hands. The pyramids too he saw, but leaves the description of these to men of more science than himself, giving his opinion nevertheless, that the sphinx is better worth viewing than any one of them.

Thus end the adventures, if such they can be called, of the Scandaroon factor-marine, who travelled through the most interesting parts of two, quarters of the globe without having rendered the narration of his travels either entertaining or instructive. We cannot indeed conjecture the motive that induced Mr. Barjew of Bristol, to correct the bad grammar and quaint sentences of this work, for the purpose of presenting it to the public; there is nothing in it, that we have observed, that has thrown any additional light on the manners, customs, or literature of the East. Here are no statistical inquiries, no interesting philosophical disquisitions. Even personal adventures, those interesting egotisms, that so often are more pleasing than the most correct and solid information—are not here to be found. The author relates every thing that he has seen, with the cold, dry, and languid manner of the geographer-or with the minuteness of the voyaging trader; and though there are frequent occasions in those regions of Asia Minor, so hallowed by remembrances of the sacred past, in which he might display the softness of his feelings, or the energy of his thought-he slumbers on in his usual didactic style. If indeed the ports he visited are accurately described, and the winds that prevail in them, or the rocks that render them dangerous, pointed out, the author has done as much as his education or habits rendered him capable of performing; but, we will ask Mr. Barjew, whether these are excellences sufficient to claim the attention of the public? Not, indeed, that this work is so wholly without its merits as to render it totally unworthy of readers: on the contrary, it is better than many of the travels that daily issue from the press. Its merits, however, are of the negative kind, and more than compensated

by its barrenness in useful or even pleasing information. It is not so garrulous as the quartos of the Stranger Knight, or so pompous as the nothingness of the Vendue-master, but its matter is trifling, tedious, or useless, and its manner quaint and puerile. It, indeed, throughout resembles a translation from a foreign language, more than an original work in our own; and though we must confess its simplicity to be pleasing, we cannot help wishing, that as it was to be published, Mr. Barjew had rendered it in some sentences less humble. It is true the author possessed an advantage over many other travellers, and at Korna saw the paradise of our first parents. But although it may delight our readers to hear that one of the extraordinary excellences of this seat of happiness is the plenty, excellence, and cheapness of its provisions, we do not give it credit for effecting improvement in writers.

The preface by Mr. Barjew is somewhat assuming in style, but not inelegant: it is, indeed, the best part of the book.

ELEMENTS OF ART : A POEM: IN SIX CANTOS; WITH NOTES AND A PREFACE, INCLUDING STRICTURES ON THE STATE OF THE ARTS, CRITICISM, PATRÓNAGE, AND PUBLIC TASTE. BY MARTIN ARCHER SHEE, R. A.—pp. 400. 8vo. price 13s. Miller. London. 1809.

If the work, which it is now proposed to consider, had been confined merely to the discussion of such subjects as relate immediately to the practice of the art of Painting, it had been presumption perhaps in any but a professor to question its doctrines but as there is less novelty in the precepts, which the author has laid down for the study of the art, than in the demands, which he has made on the public in behalf of the artist, an examination of the grounds on which these claims

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are founded, and of the arguments by which they are supported, appears to be more necessary than any inquiry into the merits of the elementary part of the work and as the justice of these pretensions is to be determined by the general principles, which regulate the conduct of society at large, to which the appeal is made, the skill or science of a professor is not necessary to the investigation.

To stir with his pebble the slumbering lake of public feeling on the subject of the arts,' as he strangely expresses it, has been the author's principal motive for the publication of his present work, as well as of his former, The Rhymes on Art' of which, indeed, as he informs the reader, the Elements' are to be considered as a continuation; as the upper stories and finishing of his small didactic lodge,' the name of which he has only altered in compliance with the opinion of some polite critics, who thought the work degraded below its just rank by the 'poverty of its titular pretensions.' Without entering, therefore, into a particular examination of the structure or contents of the former part of the work, which has been now for some years before the public, and has passed the ordeal of criticism, it will yet be necessary to advert to such parts as relate immediately to the subject proposed for discussion, that the author, as in justice he ought, may have the advantage of the whole of his argument. It is not, indeed, very easy to follow exactly the track of Mr. Shee's reasoning, so wildly is it overrun with the flowers of rhetoric; but a slight sketch may serve to convey a sufficient idea of it.

Deeply impressed himself with the importance of the cause, which he has undertaken to advocate, he has exerted all the energies of his mind, and exhausted all the powers of his eloquence, in the attempt to engage the sympathy of the public. No patriot, who should seek to point out to his fellow-countrymen the approach of the greatest danger that could threaten an independent people, could sound the alarm with greater zeal, reproach the apathy of the indolent with more severity,

or revile the disaffected with more scornful vehemence, Aware of the advantage of entrenching himself in positions allowed by general consent to be tenable, he has in the outset combated from these, but his sallies from them have been most irregular. His deductions are seldom warranted by his premises.

He observes, that "whatever may be the power or pro66 sperity of a state, whatever the accumulations of her wealth, "or the splendour of her triumphs, to her intellectual attain"ments must she look for rational estimation." Now this may be very safely admitted to be true, nor is it of importance to object, that a state must necessarily have made very considerable intellectual attainments to come within the description: but it does not so immediately appear that by such intellectual attainments the fine arts alone are to be understood; and yet it seems to be only for the purpose of drawing such an inference, that Mr. Shee has advanced the observation. According to him, the arts are "the vital principle, the breathing soul of 66 empire"-" the present and the future are alike within the 66 grasp of their power; they are the crystals of immortality, "in which all the forms of greatness are imperishably fixed to "gratify the wondering eye of time." Viewing the subject in so extraordinary a light, his notions respecting it are necessarily extraordinary.

He argues that it is the policy of a great nation to be liberal and magnificent; to be free of her rewards, splendid in her establishments, and gorgeous in her public works; that such things are amongst the best and most profitable speculations of a state, since they produce large returns of respect and consideration from her neighbours, and competitors,--and of patriotic exultation amongst her own citizens, making men proud of their country, and from priding in it, prompt in its defence; that, therefore, every person interested for the fine arts, or concerned for the reputation of his country, must perceive with more than regret a growing disregard to the fate of the one, which cannot fail materially to affect the other: a