THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For JANUARY, 1823. ART. I. Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. during the Years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. By Sir Robert Ker Porter. With numerous Engravings, &c. 2 Vols. Vol. II. 4to. pp. 870. 47. 14s. 6d. Boards. Longman and Co. 1822. WHE In HEN we last parted with Sir Robert Porter, we expressed a hope that it would be only for a season, since we promised ourselves much instruction and amusement from the continuation of his work. Already we have to state that this intelligent and laborious traveller has not disappointed us; for a second volume of his Persian travels, equal to the former in bulk and the multifarious accumulation of its subjects, is now before us. It is also not deficient in other features of resemblance; the inflated style, which we gently rebuked on that occasion, having grown more turgid, as if the short respite from his task had, by giving the author breath, enabled him to pile up yet more gigantic masses of phraseology, and to array together a yet more countless host of epithets. Wherever we open the book, tall grenadier words, more than sesquipedalian in height, appear in all the pomp and pride of rhetorical exaggeration: rocks frown in gloomier grandeur; mountains increase in precipitous terror; and banditti are still more savage, in his Salvator Rosa descriptions. He is equally apt to luxuriate amid the more voluptuous graces of diction, and makes an unsparing use of the "mellitos verborum globulos;" roses and jasmines, clustering fruits, enwreathed flowers, parterres of sweets, dark-green shadows, gurgling waters, and golden rays of setting suns, decorating his pages with every variety of verbal embroidery. Pour le coup, we can scarcely trust ourselves with his delineations of female beauty; where he expatiates as in a congenial element, and is emphatically the elegans formarum spectator of the comic poet. He is, indeed, unrivalled in his portraits of the oriental ladies, the empire of whose charms has been so enviously circumscribed to the brief space of eight or ten years; who bloom at twelve, and fade into ugliness and wrinkles at twenty. VOL. C. Hands B Hands and feet dyed with henna, hair and eye-brows stained with indigo, chains of gold, collars of pearl, bracelets of silver, and golden-tissued muslins, here shew that Sir Robert's descriptive powers are as well adapted to the minute and beautiful as to the vast and sublime. The inconvenience of all this is that it is often pushed too far; and the artist who deals so much in words, which are but the images of things, Pygmalion-like, is too apt to become enamoured of the picture and neglect the substance. It is also necessary to remind this class of authors that unintermitted effort becomes weakness in composition. The real graces of diction are shy as well as chaste: they fly when they are too passionately pursued; and the writer finds at last that what he overtakes and embraces is inanity and shadow. "Un ecó, un sogno, anzi del sogno un' ombro TASSO. Ch' ad ogni mover si deligua e sgombra.” We have frequently endeavored to impress the remark, that this laborious and exaggerated style of writing is never more out of place and season than in a book of travels. Distinctness of delineation, and perspicuity of narrative, are incompatible with the swell of a studied rhetoric; and those are the peculiar graces of easy unaffected language, the charm and the magic of Lady Mary Wortley Montague's Letters, from which not one epithet could be torn, or one phrase abstracted, without doing violence to the sense; the simple beauties, which no affectation can mimic, and no art can rival. -- - If we place these admonitions in the front of our article, it is because we can conscientiously devote the greater portion of it to commendation; for Sir Robert Porter has undoubtedly collected a mass of instructive and interesting information, concerning a country that is linked to our feelings by the most powerful associations. It brings together, as in one tablet, sacred and profane story; and when we think of Persia, the shade of the mightiest of the nations, the conqueror of Egypt and of Babylon, the restorer of Jerusalem, — the invader first, and lastly the victim, of Greece, passes in solemn and appalling grandeur before us. Perhaps no example in our youthful studies is more fertile of instruction; or exhibits more impressive pictures of the instability of human objects, of the insecurity of thrones and dominations, of the virtues which founded and the corruptions which dissolved them. Nor is it in the great revolutions of her antient empire that she is most interesting: for, at a later period, she is ennobled by the proud distinction of withstanding the impetuous tide of of Roman ambition, and in after times of being the bulwark of Christendom against the Turk. Even now, she is not extinct beneath the palsying influence of Mohammedanism; and a century of misrule and oppression has neither quite exhausted her strength nor destroyed her resources. We are, therefore, grateful to Sir R. Porter for having collected, with much zeal and diligence, so large an accession to our former stock of information concerning this beauteous region; and for adding the results of his own observations to those of Chardin, Lebrun, Niebuhr, Morier, and Malcolm, in a field where, if fresh harvests are no longer to be reaped, abundant gleanings are yet to be obtained. We left this traveller at Shiraz, whence he had resolved to return to Ispahan for the recovery of his health; meaning then to proceed to Hamadan, the antient Ecbatana, to compare its antiquities with those of Persepolis, and to pursue the winding courses of the Tigris and the Euphrates, in order to investigate the remains of what once was Babylon. The volume before us is the narrative of this expedition. The party, consisting of Dr. Sharpe, Sedag Beg, the Mehmandar, and the author, accordingly set off for Ispahan by what is called the summer-route, the most direct to that place, and west of Persepolis, on the 29th of July, 1818. During his second sojourn at Ispahan, he had more frequent opportunities than before of mixing in Persian society, and being visited by khans and khetkodes; (nobles and magistrates ;) and he began, as he tells us, to understand better the Persian character in general. He considers that the natural disposition of the people is amiable, and that they have quick capacities: but, fond of pleasure, they derive their chief delights from their poets, the joys of the chase, and the voluptuousnesss of the harem. A general sense of the insecurity of their possessions, however, makes them intent on secret accumulations; and hence is generated the spirit of avarice, over-reaching, extortion, and the whole train of vices which flow from habits of dissimulation and falsehood. On turning, however, to Sir John Chardin's character of the Persians, we found the dark shades of it much softened by him: he had considerable dealings with them; and it is not probable that the national characteristics have undergone any considerable change since his time. According to his account, so far are they from being avaricious, that the moment they are in possession of wealth, " they scatter it about in the most lavish and extravagant manner; in horses, women, jewels, and fine clothes; and if any thing be left, so little careful are they to hoard it up for posterity, that they build caravanseras for the reception of travellers, or bridges over rivers, or found mosques, &c., as the surest way of being talked of in this world, and of securing to themselves those voluptuous delights, which are promised to the faithful in that which is to come." Sir Robert Porter thus delineates other traits of their national character: I have already mentioned, that the peculiar temperament of the Persian is lively, imitative, full of imagination, and of that easy nature which we in the West call "taking the world lightly;" and that hence he is prone to seek pleasures, and to enjoy them with his whole heart. Amongst these, the gaiety of his taste renders him fond of pomp and show; but his fear of attracting suspicion to his riches prevents him (from) exhibiting such signs in his own person, beyond an extra superb shawl, a handsomely hilted dagger, or the peculiar beauty of his kaliouns. The utmost magnificence of his house consists in the number of apartments, and extent of the courts; of the rose-trees and little fountains in the one, and the fine carpets and nummuds in the other. But vessels of gold or silver are never seen. The dinner-trays are of painted wood; and those on which the sweetmeats and fruits appear are of copper, thickly tinned over, looking like dirty plate. Neither gluttony nor epicurism is a vice of this nation. The lower classes also live principally upon bread, fruits, and water. The repasts of the higher consist of the simplest fare; their cookery being devoid of any ingredient to stimulate the appetite. Sherbets, of different kinds, are their usual beverage; and tea and coffee the luxuries of ceremonious meetings. Some, however, indulge in the inebriating powers of the vine; but so far from regarding it as a social pleasure, either from fear of exposure, or insensibility to its exhilarating effects, they retire secretly and alone; and quaff bowl after bowl, until the solitary toper makes himself as happy as he intended, that is, perfectly stupidly drunk. This is the utmost a Persian can conceive of the enjoyment of wine; and not being able to comprehend the gratification Europeans find in sipping its refreshing cordial from a small vessel, while animating the gentle stimulus with convivial conversation, his astonishment is unbounded at hearing that the best company always rise sober from a festive board. From the earliest times, the breeding of fine horses has been a passion in the East; and in no country more than Persia, where indeed a man and his horse are seen in such constant companionship, that custom has in a manner identified them with each other, and hence the most beautiful steeds are never brought in proof of any extraordinary riches; a Persian being well mounted, though the clothes on his back may not be worth half a tomaun. Their mules, too, are a stately, useful race. I have already noticed, that horse-racing is not pursued here as with us, to produce a certain prodigious swiftness in a short given time; but to exercise the limbs of the travelling or courier-horse, to go over a considerable number of miles in one day, or more, at an unusual rate, without slackening his pace, or suffering by the exertion. The fleetness of a Persian horse in the chase is equal to to that of any country; but his exquisite management in the military sports of the girid, &c. cannot be equalled on any other field. In these exercises we see something of the latent fire of the chivalric Shah Sevund breaking forth in their descendants, and lambently playing on the point of their lances. The dexterity of the evolutions, the grace of their motions, and the knighthood-gallantry of their address, unite in giving an inexpressible charm to these scenes. But it does not end there. This gaieté de cœur, and courtesy of manner, pervading every class, renders the society of the higher ranks particularly amiable; and communication with the lower free of any rudeness. Nay, indeed, the humblest peasant, from the old man to the boy, expresses himself with a degree of civility only to be expected from education and refinement. Quick in seeing, or apprehending occasions of service, high and low seem to bend themselves gracefully to whatever task their superiors may assign; besides, talent seems to contend with inclination, in accomplishing its fulfilment. In short, this pliant, polished steel of character, so different from the sturdy nature and stubborn uses of the iron sons of the North, fit the Persians to be at once a great, a happy, and a peaceable people, under a legitimate and well-ordered monarchy.' When the victorious armies of the Caliphs over-ran Persia, they destroyed in their desolating progress all that had been hitherto deemed sacred in the land, and the temples of Zoroaster sank before the mosques of Mohammed. The richer part of the antient sect of the Guebres fled to the frontiers, or to the shores of India*: but a remnant of this persecuted people, reduced to wretchedness and penury, found an asylum at Yezd, which still contains about 4000 or 5000 of their descendants. They are excellent husbandmen, and mechanics; and the tolerant policy of Shah Abbas left them unmolested at Ispahan: but the mart and the suburb, appropriated to them by that monarch, have fallen to decay. Even Fars, where the sacred books of Zoroaster were deposited, and the Magi had towns and castles for their residence; even this province, the antient Persis, has not a single asylum for them; and now, if perchance any little community of this repudiated sect be found in the villages of Persia, they must perform their rites in secrecy and silence. So much has been written concerning the early faith of the Persians, and its subsequent corruptions, that we deem it unnecessary to notice the present author's dissertation on the Mithratic and Guebre religion; and indeed that verbosity, which is his besetting sin, would render even an epitome of it wholly incompatible with our limits. We cannot, however, omit his account of a sect which is still increasing in Persia : *They are the Parsees of Bombay and Surat. • The |