him drink spirits; and let him that prefers maajûn, take maajun; and let not the one party give any ile or provoking language to the other. Some sat down to spiri's, some to maajun. The party went on for some time tolerably well. Baba Jan Kabuzi had not been in the boat; we had sent for him when we reached the royal tents. He chose to drink spirits. Terdi Muhammed Kipchak, too, was sent for, and joined the spirit-drinkers. As the spiritdrinkers and maajun-takers never can agree in one party, the spirit-bibing party began to indulge in foolish and idle conversation, and to make provok. ing remarks on maajun and maajun-takers. Baba Jan, too, getting drunk, talked very absurdly. The tipplers, filling up glass after glass for Terdi Muhammed, made him drink them off, so that in a very short time he was mad drunk. Whatever exertions I could make to preserve peace, were all unavailing; there was much uproar and wrangling. The party became quite burdensome and unpleasant, and soon broke up."

The second day after, we find the royal bacchanal still more grievously overtaken :

We continued drinking spirits in the boat till bed-time prayers, when, being completely drunk, we mounted, and taking torches in our hands came at fall gallop back to the camp from the river-side, faling sometimes on one side of the horse, and Botimes on the other. I was miserably drunk, and ext morning, when they told me of our having galloped into the camp with lighted torches in our hands, I had not the slightest recollection of the After coining home, I vomited

#17°18'a ire.

plentifu ly."

Even in the middle of a harassing and desultory campaign, there is no intermission of this excessive jollity, though it sometimes puts the parties into jeopardy,-for example: —

place till bed-time prayers. Mull Mahmud Khalifch having arrived, we invited him to join us. Abdalla, who had got very drunk, made an observation which affected Khalifeh. Without recolletag that Mülla Mahmud was present, he repeated the verse, (Persian.) Examine whom you will, you will find

him suffering from the same wound.

Mully Mahmud, who did not drink, reproved Abdalla for repeating this verse with levity. Abdalla, recovering his judgment, was in terrible perturbation, and conversed in a wonderfully smooth and sweet strain all the rest of the evening."

In a year or two after this, when he seems to be in a course of unusual indulgence, we meet with the following edifying remark: "As I intend, when forty years old, to abstain from wine; and as I now want somewhat less than one year of being forty, I drink wine most copiously!" When forty comes, however, we hear nothing of this sage resolution -but have a regular record of the wine and maajun parties as before, up to the year 1527. In that year, however, he is seized with rather a sudden fit of penitence, and has the resolution to begin a course of rigorous reform. There is something rather picturesque in his very solemn and remarkable account of this great revolution in his habits:

On Monday the 23d of the first Jemâdi, I had mounted to survey my posts, and, in the course of my ride, was seriously struck with the reflection that I had always resolved, one time or another, to make an effectual repentance, and that some traces of a hankering after the renunciation of forbidden works had ever remained in my heart. Having sent for the gold and silver goblets and cups, with all the other utensils used for drinking parties, I We continued at this place drinking till the sun directed them to be broken, and renounced the use wis on the decline, when we set out. Those who of wine-purifying my mind! The fragments of had been of the party were completely drunk. the goblets, and other utensils of gold and silver, I Syed Kasim was so drunk, that two of his servants directed to be divided among Derwishes and the were obliged to put him on horseback, and brought bam to the camp with great difficulty, Dost Mu- poor. The first person who followed me in my rehammed Bakir was so far gone, that Amin Mu-pentance was Asas, who also accompanied me in my resolution of ceasing to cut the beard, and of hammed Terkhan, Masti Chehreh, and those who allowing it to grow. That night and the following, were along with him, were unable, with all their numbers of Amirs and courtiers, soldiers and perexertions, to get him on horseback. They poured sons not in the service, to the number of nearly a great quantity of water over him, but all to no three hundred men, made vows of reformation. purpose At this moment a body of Afghans ap- The wine which we had with us we poured on the peared in sight. Amin Muhammed Terkhân, ground! I ordered that the wine brought by Bâba being very drunk, gravely gave it as his opinion. Dost should have salt thrown into it, that it might that rather than leave him, in the condition in which he make into vinegar. On the spot where the wine he was, to fall into the hands of the enemy, it was had been poured out, I directed a wâîn to be sunk better at once to cut off his head, and carry it and built of stone, and close by the wâîn an almsaway. Making another exertion, however, with house to be erected." much difficulty, they contrived to throw him upon borse, which they led along, and so brought him off."

On some occasions they contrive to be drunk four times in twenty-four hours. The gallant prince contents himself with a strong maajan one day; but

Next morning we had a drinking party in the We continued drinking till night. On the following morning we again had an early cup; and, getting intoxicated, went to sleep. About Doub-day prayers, we left Istâlif. and I took a man on the road. It was about afternoon prayers before I reached Behzadi. The crops were extreme v good. While I was riding round the harves fields, such of my companions as were fond of we began to contrive another drinking-bout Although I had taken a maajun, yet, as the crops were uncommonly fine! we sat down under some trees that had yielded a plentiful load of fruit, and began to drink. We kept up the party in the same

He then issued a magnificent Firman, announcing his reformation, and recommending its example to all his subjects. But he still persists, we find, in the use of a mild maajûn. he had the firmness to persevere to the last We are sorry to be obliged to add, that though in his abstinence from wine, the sacrifice seems to have cost him very dear; and he continued to the very end of his life to hanker after his broken wine-cups, and to look back with fond regret to the delights he had ab

This verse, I presume, is from a religious poem, and has a mystical meaning. The profane application of it is the ground of offence."

This vow was sometimes made by persons who set out on a war against the Infidels. They did not trim the beard till they returned victorious. Some vows of a similar nature may be found in Scripture."

jured for ever. There is something abso- | tribution levied on her private fortune. The following brief anecdote speaks volumes as to the difference of European and Asiatic manners and tempers :

lutely pathetic, as well as amiable, in the following candid avowal in a letter written the very year before his death to one of his old drinking companions:

I am distressed since I renounced wine;
I am confounded and unfit for business,-
Regret leads me to penitence,
Penitence leads me to regret.

"Another of his wives was Katak Begum, who was the foster-sister of this same Terkhân Begum. Sultan Ahmed Mirza married her for love. He was prodigiously attached to her, and she governed him with absolute sway. She drank wine. During her life, the Sultan durst not venture to frequent any other of his ladies. At last, however, he put her to death, and delivered himself from this reproach."

In several of the passages we have cited, there are indications of this ambitious warIndeed, last year, my desire and longing for wine rior's ardent love for fine flowers, beautiful and social parties were beyond measure excessive. gardens, and bright waters. But the work It even came to such a length that I have found abounds with traits of this amiable and, with myself shedding tears from vexation and disappoint-reference to some of these anecdotes, apparment. In the present year, praise be to God, these troubles are over, and I ascribe them chiefly to the ently ill-sorted propensity. In one place he occupation afforded to my mind by a poetical trans-sayslation, on which I have employed myself. Let me advise you too, to adopt a life of abstinence. Social parties and wine are pleasant, in company with our jolly friends and old boon companions. But with whom can you enjoy the social cup? With whom can you indulge in the pleasures of wine? If you have only Shîr Ahmed, and Haîder Kulli, for the companions of your gay hours and jovial goblet, you can surely find no great difficulty in consenting to the sacrifice. I conclude with every good wish."

found only in one narrow spot of ground, as we emerge from the straits of Ghûrbend."

And a little after

"In the warm season they are covered with the the Aimâks and Turks resort to them. In the chekîn-taleh grass in a very beautiful manner, and skirts of these mountains the ground is richly diversified by various kinds of tulips. I once directed them to be counted, and they brought in thirty-two or thirty-three different sorts of tulips. There is the rose, and which I termed laleh-gul-bui (the roseone species which has a scent in some degree like scented tulip). This species is found only in the We have mentioned already that Baber ap- of ground, and nowhere else. In the skirts of the Desht-e-Sheikh (the Sheikh's plain), in a small spot pears to have been of a frank and generous same hills below Perwân, is produced the laleh-sedcharacter-and there are, throughout the Me-berg (or hundred-leaved tulip), which is likewise moirs, various traits of clemency and tenderness of heart, scarcely to have been expected in an Eastern monarch and professional warrior. He weeps ten whole days for the loss of a friend who fell over a precipice after one of their drinking parties; and spares the lives, and even restores the domains of various chieftains, who had betrayed his confidence, and afterwards fallen into his power. Yet there are traces of Asiatic ferocity, and of a hard-hearted wastefulness of life, which remind us that we are beyond the pale of European gallantry and Christian compassion. In his wars in Afghân and India, the prisoners are commonly butchered in cold blood after the action-and pretty uniformly a triumphal pyramid is erected of their skulls. These horrible executions, too, are performed with much solemnity before the royal pavilion and on one occasion, it is incidentally recorded, that such was the number of prisoners brought forward for this infamous butchery, that the sovereign's tent had three times to be removed to a different station-the ground before it being so drenched with blood and encumbered with quivering carcasses! On one occasion, and on one only, an attempt was made to poison him-the mother of one of the sovereigns whom he had dethroned having bribed his cooks and tasters to mix death in his repast. Upon the detection of the plot, the taster was cut to pieces, the cook flayed alive, and the scullions trampled to death by elephants. Such, however, was the respect paid to rank, or the indulgence to maternal resentment, that the prime mover of the whole conspiracy, the queen dowager, merely put under restraint, and has a con

crooked course,

Few quarters possess a district that can rival side of it are gardens, green, gay, and beautiful. Its Istâlif. A large river runs through it, and on either water is so cold, that there is no need of icing it ; and it particularly pure. In this district is a garden. called Bagh-e-Kilân (or the Great Garden), which Ulugh Beg Mirza seized upon. I paid the price of the garden to the proprietors, and received from them a grant of it. On the outside of the Trees, under the shade of which there are agreeable garden are large and beautiful spreading plane spots finely sheltered. A perennial stream, large enough to turn a mill, runs through the garden; and on its banks are planted planes and other trees. Formerly this stream flowed in a winding and tered according to a regular plan, which added greatly to the beauty of the place. Lower down than these villages, and about a koss or a koss and a half above the level plain, on the lower skirts of the hills, is a fountain, named Khwâjeh-seh-yârân three species of trees; above the fountain are many (Kwâjeh three friends), around which there are beautiful plane-trees, which yield a pleasant shade. On the two sides of the fountain, on small eminences at the bottom of the hills, there are a num. ber of oak trees; except on these two spots, where there are groves of oak, there is not an oak to be met with on the hills to the west of Kabul. In front of this fountain, towards the plain, there are many spots covered with the flowery Arghwân* tree, and besides these Arghwân plots, there are none else in the whole country."

but I ordered its course to be al

We shall add but one other notice of this

"The name Arghwan is generally applied to the tiful flowering shrub, which grows nearly to the anemone; but in Afghanistan it is given to a beausize of a tree."

elegant taste though on the occasion there | but of the native simplicity and amiableness mentioned, the flowers were aided by a less of this Eastern highlander. delicate sort of excitement.

"This day I ate a maajûn. While under its influence, I visited some beautiful gardens. In different beds, the ground was covered with purple and yellow Arghwan flowers. On one hand were beds of yellow flowers in bloom; on the other hand, red flowers were in blossom. In many places they sprung up in the same bed, mingled together as if they had been flung and scattered abroad. I took my seat on a rising ground near the camp, to enjoy the view of all the flower-pots. On the six sides of this eminence they were formed as into regular beds. On one side were yellow flowers; on another the purple, laid out in triangular beds. On two other sides, there were fewer flowers; but, as far as the eve could reach, there were flower-gardens of a similar kind. In the neighbourhood of Pershawer, during the spring, the flower-plots are exquisitely beautiful."

"My solicitude to visit my western dominions is boundless, and great beyond expression. The affairs of Hindustan have at length, however, been reduced into a certain degree of order; and I trust in Almighty God that the time is near at hand, when, through the grace of the Most High, every thing will be completely settled in this country. As soon as matters are brought into that state, I shall, God willing, set out for your quarter, without losing a moment's time. How is it possible that the delights of those lands should ever be erased from the heart? Above all, how is it possible for one like me, who have made a vow of abstinence from wine, and of purity of life, to forget the delicious melons and grapes of that pleasant region? They very recently brought me a single musk-melon. While cutting it up, I felt myself affected with a strong feeling of loneliness, and a sense of my exile from my native country; and I could not help shedding tears while I was eating it!"

We have, now enabled our readers, we think, to judge pretty fairly of the nature of On the whole, we cannot help having a this very curious volume; and shall only liking for "the Tiger"-and the romantic, present them with a few passages from two though somewhat apocryphal account that is letters written by the valiant author in the given of his death, has no tendency to diminish last year of his life. The first is addressed our partiality. It is recorded by Abulfazi, to his favourite son and successor Hùmâiun, and other native historians, that in the year whom he had settled in the government of after these Memoirs cease, Hûmâiûn, the beSamarcand, and who was at this time a sover-loved son of Baber, was brought to Agra in a eign of approved valour and prudence. There state of the most miserable health: is a very diverting mixture of sound political counsel and minute criticism on writing and composition, in this paternal effusion. We can give but a small part of it.

sepa

In many of your letters you complain of ration from your friends. It is wrong for a prince to indulge in such a complaint. "There is certainly no greater bondage than that in which a king is placed; but it ill becomes him to complain of inevitable separation.

I

In compliance with my wishes, you have indeed written me letters, but you certainly never read them over; for had you attempted to read them, you must have found it absolutely impossible; and would then undoubtedly have put them by. contrived indeed to decipher and comprehend the meaning of your last letter, but with much difficulty. It is excessively confused and crabbed. Who ever saw a Moamma (a riddle or a charade) in prose? Your spelling is not bad, yet not quite correct. You have written iltafat with a toe (instead of a te), and kuling with a be (instead of a kaf). Your letter may indeed be read; but in consequence of the far-fetched words you have employed, the meaning is by no means very intelligible. You certainly do not excel in letter-writing, and fail chiefly because you have too great a desire to show your acquirements. For the future, you should write unaffectedly, with clearness, using plain words, which would cost less trouble both to

the writer and reader."

The other letter is to one of his old companions in arms;--and considering that it is written by an ardent and ambitious conqueror, from the capital of his new empire of Hindustan, it seems to us a very striking proof, not only of the nothingness of high fortune,

while several men of skill were talking to the em "When all hopes from medicine were over, and peror of the melancholy situation of his son, Abul Baka, a personage highly venerated for his knowledge and piety, remarked to Baber, that in such a receive the most valuable thing possessed by one case the Almighty had sometimes vouchsafed to friend, as an offering in exchange for the life of life was dearest to Hûmâiun, as Hûmâiûn's was to another. Baber, exclaiming that, of all things, his him, and that, next to the life of Humâiûn, his own was what he most valued, devoted his life to Heaven as a sacrifice for his son's! The noblemen and, in place of his first offering, to give the diaaround him entreated him to retract the rash vow, mond taken at Agra, and reckoned the most valuthat it was the dearest of our worldly possessions able on earth: that the ancient sages had said, alone that was to be offered to Heaven. But he of whatever value, could be put in competition with persisted in his resolution, declaring that no stone, his life. He three times walked round the dying prince, a solemnity similar to that used in sacrifices and heave-offerings, and, retiring, prayed earnestly to God. After some time he was heard to exclaim, The Mussulman historians assure us, that Hûmâiûn 'I have borne it away! I have borne it away!' almost immediately began to recover, and that, in proportion as he recovered, the health and strength of Baber visibly decayed. Baber communicated his dying instructions to Khwâjeh Khalîteh, Kamber Ali Beg, Terdi Beg, and Hindu Beg, who were then at court commending Hûmâiûn to their protection. With that unvarying affection for his of his life, he strongly besought Humain to be family which he showed in all the circumstances kind and forgiving to his brothers. Hùmâiûn promised-and, what in such circumstances is rare, kept his promise."

POETRY.

(March, 1819.)

Specimens of the British Poets; with Biographical and Critical Notices, and an Essay on English Poetry. By THOMAS CAMPBELL. 7 vols. 8vo. London: 1819.

WE would rather see Mr. Campbell as a If he were like most authors, or even like poet, than as a commentator on poetry:-be- most critics, we could easily have pardoned cause we would rather have a solid addition this; for we very seldom find any work too to the sum of our treasures, than the finest or short. It is the singular goodness of his critimost judicious account of their actual amount. cisms that makes us regret their fewness; for But we are very glad to see him in any way: nothing, we think, can be more fair, judicious --and think the work which he has now given and discriminating, and at the same time us very excellent and delightful. Still, how-more fine, delicate and original, than the ever, we think there is some little room for greater part of the discussions with which he complaint; and, feeling that we have not got all we were led to expect, are unreasonable enough to think that the learned author still owes us an arrear: which we hope he will handsomely pay up in the next edition..

would generally be found wanting, especially | bell was himself a Master in a distinct school in a work of the large and comprehensive of poetry, and distinguished by a very pecunature of that now before us-we mean, in liar and fastidious style of composition, withabsolute fairness and impartiality towards the out being apprehensive that the effects of this different schools or styles of poetry which he bias would be apparent in his work; and that, may have occasion to estimate and compare. with all his talent and discernment, he would Even the most common and miscellaneous now and then be guilty of great, though unreader has a peculiar taste in this way-and intended injustice, to some of those whose has generally erected for himself some ob- manner was most opposite to his own. We scure but exclusive standard of excellence, are happy to say that those apprehensions by which he measures the pretensions of all have proved entirely groundless; and that that come under his view. One man admires nothing in the volumes before us is more adwitty and satirical poetry, and sees no beauty mirable, or to us more surprising, than the in rural imagery or picturesque description; perfect candour and undeviating fairness with while another doats on Idyls and Pastorals, which the learned author passes judgment on and will not allow the affairs of polite life to all the different authors who come before him; form a subject for verse. One is for simplic--the quick and true perception he has of the ity and pathos; another for magnificence and splendour. One is devoted to the Muse of terror; another to that of love. Some are all for blood and battles, and some for music and moonlight-some for emphatic sentiments, and some for melodious verses. Even those whose taste is the least exclusive, have a leaning to one class of composition rather than to another; and overrate the beauties which fall in with their own propensities and associations -while they are palpably unjust to those which wear a different complexion, or spring from a different race.

most opposite and almost contradictory beauties-the good-natured and liberal allowance he makes for the disadvantages of each age and individual-and the temperance and brevity and firmness with which he reproves the excessive severity of critics less entitled to be severe. No one indeed, we will venture to affirm, ever placed himself in the seat of judgment with more of a judicial temperthough, to obviate invidious comparisons, we must beg leave just to add, that being called on to pass judgment only on the dead, whose faults were no longer corrigible, or had already been expiated by appropriate pains, his temper was less tried, and his severities less provoked, than in the case of living offenders,and that the very number and variety of the errors that called for animadversion, in the course of his wide survey, must have made each particular case appear comparatively insignificant, and mitigated the sentence of individual condemnation.

But, if it be difficult or almost impossible to meet with an impartial judge for the whole great family of genius, even among those quiet and studious readers who ought to find delight even in their variety, it is obvious that this bias and obliquity of judgment must be still more incident to one who, by being himself a Poet, must not only prefer one school of poetry to all others, but must actually belong to it, and be disposed, as a pupil, or still It is to this last circumstance, of the large more as a Master, to advance its pretensions and comprehensive range which he was obabove those of all its competitors. Like the liged to take, and the great extent and variety votaries or leaders of other sects, successful of the society in which he was compelled to poets have been but too apt to establish ex-mingle, that we are inclined to ascribe, not clusive and arbitrary creeds; and to invent only the general mildness and indulgence of articles of faith, the slightest violation of his judgments, but his happy emancipation which effaces the merit of all other virtues. from those narrow and limitary maxims by Addicting themselves, as they are apt to do, which we have already said that poets are so to the exclusive cultivation of that style to peculiarly apt to be entangled. As a large which the bent of their own genius naturally and familiar intercourse with men of different inclines them, they look everywhere for those habits and dispositions never fails, in characbeauties of which it is peculiarly susceptible, ters of any force or generosity, to dispel the and are disgusted if they cannot be found.— prejudices with which we at first regard them, Like discoverers in science, or improvers in and to lower our estimate of our own superior art, they see nothing in the whole system but happiness and wisdom, so, a very ample and their own discoveries and improvements, and extensive course of reading in any departundervalue every thing that cannot be con- ment of letters, tends naturally to enlarge our nected with their own studies and glory. As narrow principles of judgment; and not only the Chinese mapmakers allot all the lodgeable to cast down the idols before which we had area of the earth to their own nation, and formerly abased ourselves, but to disclose to thrust the other countries of the world into us the might and the majesty of much that little outskirts and by-corners-so poets are we had mistaken and contemned. disposed to represent their own little field of In this point of view, we think such a work exertion as occupying all the sunny part of as is now before us, likely to be of great use Parnassus, and to exhibit the adjoining regions to ordinary readers of poetry-not only as under terrible shadows and most unmerciful unlocking to them innumerable new springs foreshortenings. of enjoyment and admiration, but as having With those impressions of the almost in- a tendency to correct and liberalize their evitable partiality of poetical judgments in judgments of their old favourites, and to general, we could not recollect that Mr. Camp-strengthen and enliven all those faculties by