brought down almost every subject treated of to the date of the present day. In the opening of the work before us, he ingenuously informs us of the cause and object of his excursion: "Having finished (says he) my history of the Royal Society, and being accidentally detained in Edinburgh without any specific employment, it occurred to me that I might occupy the summer with considerable profit to myself, and obtain a great deal of amusement, if I were to take advantage of the peace lately concluded between Great Britain and Sweden, and traverse part of that vast and interesting country. My objects were not only to observe the manners and dispositions of the people, and the progress which they had made in the arts and civilization; but likewise to take a mineralogical survey of the country, as far as could be done by hastily traversing it; to view as nearly as possible the state of chemistry in Sweden, and to make myself acquainted with the discoveries made in that science by the Swedes during the last ten years, with the greatest part of which I was unacquainted."What induced Dr. Thomson to shorten his intended residence in Sweden we are not informed; but instead of occupying the summer in these pleasant and valuable pursuits, he tells us in his preface that his "whole stay in the kingdom did not exceed six or seven weeks; and as during that time (continues he) I traversed an extent of more than twelve hundred miles, it is obvious that my journey must have been made with too much rapidity to enable me to lay in any great stock of accurate information," Now in all this confession there is a simplicity that pleases us, though there is a truth that does not give us

quite so much pleasure. The greater part of the journey before us has been unquestionably made at home; but had the writer made it all at home, provided he had well made it, and not deceived us, as too many travellers of the present day have done, and whose trade consists in so doing, we should still have been obliged to him. The actual character of the present work is, as far as we are able to judge from a careful and steady perusal, that it contains much valuable matter, judiciously collected from preceding writers, and industriously compared with the various facts and inquiries which occurred to the writer, or which he had an opportunity of making, in the course of his tour: and so far possessing an authority superior to what they must have borne, had he chosen to have drawn up a similar account of the country, and put it forth as the work of his closet, without stirring from his native country. The voiume, however, is enlivened with numerous anecdotes, occasional memoirs of persons of high character and reputation, more especially in the scientific and literary world, and with customs and manners of the country, which possess the merit, not only of elegant amusement, but of strict originality. The sixth and seventh chapters, upon the character of Gustavus IV. and the causes and results of the late revolution, we have no hesitation in saying, are drawn from primary sources, and at the moment of writing this article, contain matter of great interest and popular curiosity. We cannot quite so well approve of the discussion on the Swedish language, considering the author's acknowledged inacquaintance with it: nor of his swelling out the volume by four intermediate

chapters,

chapters, containing an agricultural, geognostic, zoological, and philological account of Lapland, upon which it does not appear that he ever set his foot.

"Travels through Norway and Lapland during the years 1806, 1807, and 1808 by Leopold Von Buch, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Translated from the original German: by John Black. With notes and illustrations, chiefly mineralogical, and some account of the Author, by Robert Jameson, F.R.S.E. F.L.S. &c. Illustrated with Maps and Physical Sections," 4to. This volume con tains a large collection of valuable matter, and of the higher import ance, as it relates, in a very considerable degree, and especially in its former and more important part, to a country of which we have very little information of essential moment or established authority. The style, though not of that picturesque character, which is chiefly son ht after in the present day, is lively and animated; the original traveller has described incidents as well as facts, customs and manners, as well as soil and surfaces, and delineated national features, as well as the features of the respective countries they inhabit, and the animals, vegetables, and minerals that are indigenous to them. And the translator appears, upon the whole, to have executed his task, rot only with fidelity, but with simplicity and ease, though we must except a few turns of expression, in which he has not exactly hit upon the corresponding idioms of the two languages.

M. Von Buch has been known for many years to the literary world, as an industrious and correct mineralogist. He is a pupil of the Wernerian school, and steadily at

tached to its doctrines; a fact which has specially recommended bim to the notice of Professor Jameson, who has given a brief sketch of his life in the translator's preface, with a warmth and cordiality inspired by a similarity of pursuits and opinions. And we readily agree with Mr. Jame-on, that of all M.Von Buch's writings, the present work, his Travels in Norway and Lapland, is to be considered as the most generally interesting. It abounds in curious and important observations in regard to the climate of these remote regions; and he has shewn how the geographical and physical distributions of several of the most important vegetables that grow in the Scandinavian peninsula, are connected with situation and climate. He has, in this department, added several already known by the admirable researches of the enterprising Wahlenberg."

But there are other, and much more powerful reasons why the Travels of M. Von Buch should command an extensive perusal, at least among Englishmen. He describes a country which is likely to become a scene of severe contest, and which posseses a peculiar, and almost enthusiastic attachment to Great Britain. It is from the friendship of the latter, indeed, that Norway derives her chief advantages, as it would be from British enmity that she would experience her most afflictive sufferings. Our traveller tells us, that at Christiana every appearance which had, upon a late occasion, the least tendency to justify the English was anxiously laid hold of. Every measure of a hostile or unjustifiable nature, was imputed to the ministry, and every act of kindness to the nation at large. Possibly the inhabitants may be correct in this distinction.

tinction: but we believe that whatever adverse connection the English cabinet itself may have formed in regard to Norway, has been rather forced upon them by the peculiar and eventful diplomatic relations of the day than from any political desire to infringe upon the high spirit and independence of the Norwegians, and its honest attachment to the Danish crown. And we yet hope to see the government of our own country rather appear in the high and benevolent character of mediator, than in that of an auxiliary, in the harsh and tyrannical measure of breaking down a fealty which does honour to the human character, and of opposing the first principles of that mighty and magnanimous confederacy which is at length so effectually working the general deliverance of Europe. We thus hope moreover on another account; and that is, because we are thoroughly satisfied that so long as the Norwegians continue true to themselves, the conquest of Norway by Sweden, although assisted by the conjoint efforts of Great Britain and Russia, would be attended with almost if not with altogether insuperable difficulties. It is, undoubtedly, in the power of England to interrupt the very extensive Norwegian fisheries; and hence to deprive the country of some of its most essential supplies, and to drive many of its brave and hardy inhabitants to the use of bark-bread, and other miserable substitutes for adequate food: and we may thus add to their privations and sufferings, but we cannot conquer them for such is the face of the country, so strongly marked, so mountainous, and precipitous, that by the pre-occupation of a few difficult passes, the destruction of an invading army is frequently almost inevitable. Bodies of regular troops

:

have been more than once destroyed in several of these mountain-straits, by bands of peasantry. And we have a curious account in the work before us of the destruction, by a few countrymen in Guldbrandsdalen, of Colonel Sinclair, and nine hundred Scotch, who were marching through the country to join the army of Gustavus Adolphus. Even so late as 1788, the Swedes were overthrown by the Norwegians at the pass of Quistrum, who would afterwards have taken the rich town of Gottinberg, but for the interference of the English Ambassador, whose voice has always been allowed, from the national attachment of the Norwegians to the English, to exercise a powerful control. "Are we then," inquires Mr Black, and we enter fully into his feelings," to reward this unoffending people, the only nation in the world, perhaps, who are sincerely attached to us, by joining in a fruitless attempt to subject them to their hated neighbours ?"

"Journal of a Residence in India : by Maria Graham. Illustrated by engravings," 4to. Mrs. Graham writes with considerable spirit, and much general information. She was absent from her own country for somewhat less than three years, having embarked early in 1809, and relanded at Portsmouth in June, 1811, and had an opportunity of spending about a year and a half in the different presidencies of British India: her chief residence having been at Bombay. She has an enterprising activity, great quickness of comprehension, good classical taste, and an easy and elegant style. She suffers nothing to escape her attention that comes within her view; and seems to have left England with a fixed determination to have her eyes and her ears always open, and her pen

or her pencil always in her hand, whether at sea or land, to fulfil her promise made to a friend before her departure, that she "would make notes and journals of whatever appeared worthy of remark, either as curious in itself, or as differing from the customs, manners, and habits of Europe meaning to paint from the life and to adhere to the sober colouring of nature." This task, upon the whole, she has executed with great fidelity and credit to herself. Yet we must not conceal that many of her remarks are hazarded too rapidly and from too cursory and superficial an acquaintance with the subject, and that still more of them have been collected from other books, and added, as we suspect, since herreturn home, as a body to her own cursory outline. It is not necessary for us to enter very deeply into the first of these observations, since we have an admitted specimen in her description of the Cape of Good Hope the author herself having subjoined to this description a long note from "a person of high credit who has been long resident at the Cape," and containing corrective strictures upon her general sketch. With respect to the last observation, we allude particularly to her delineations of the general character, bistory, ritual, and opinions of the differen tribes she progressively mentions, whether Gentoos, Bhuddists, Jines, or Guebres: most of which have been taken from the Chevalier D'Ohsson, Sir William Ouseley, or the Asiatic Researches. On one occasion we confess ourselves to have been a little disappointed upon this subject. The fair author tells in p. 36, as follows; "a few days ago I was fortunate enough to make one of a party, assembled for the purpose of hearing from the Dustoor

Moola Firoze an account of the actual state of the Guebres or Parsees in India. The Dustoor is the chief priest of his sect in Bombay, and a man of great learning. He passed six years in Persia, or as he more classi ally calls it (chorographically would have been a better word) Iraun, two of which were spent at Yezd, the only place where the Mussulman government tolerates a Guebre college. His manners are distinguished, and his person and address pleasing. He is a tall handsome man, of the middle age, with a lively and intelligent countenance. His dress is a long, white muslin jamma, with a cumberbund or sash of beau tiful shawl: another shawl was rolled round his high black cap, and a band of crimson velvet appeared between it and his brow." Now we confess we felt deeply interested in the lecture which the Dustoor's fair pupil was about to derive from his great learning and personal knowledge upon the subject to be discussed. But instead of being put into possession of the opinions of Moola Firoze, we are immediately referred to the opinions of our old friends M. Anquetil da Perron (here, however, called M. Anquetil alone), the Chevalier D'Ohsson, to whose authority we must venture in various points to demur, and Sir William Ouseley's Epitome: and hear no more of the Dustoor, his great learning, his pleasing address, muslin jamma, and beautiful shawl, than if he had never been introduced to us: who appears indeed to slip away from us, like an Indian juggler, without our perceiving either when he goes off, or by what entrance he escapes. The work is nevertheless highly entertaining upon the whole, and we are by no means

surprised

"Letters from the Mediterranean containing a civil and political account of Sicily, Tripoly, Tunis, and Malta; with biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, and Observations; illustrative of the present state of those Countries, and their respective situation with respect to the British Empire. By E. Blaquiere, Esq." 2 vols. Svo.. This work, like the preceding, is founded partly upon local observation, but far more largely on the observations of preceding writers: and, like the preceding, it gives us not a single glance into the private history of the author or the object of his journey. Mrs. Graham, indeed, is kind enough to inform us, in a note to her second edition, that shortly after her residence at Bombay, though she arrived there in a state of singleness, she acquired the honour of a married woman, at the same time warning us against a belief that this was the object of her voyage, though, as we have already stated, she mentions no other, Mr. Blaquiere, however, does not confide to us even so much information as this. He speaks, in one place, (p. xvi. Introd.) of his inexperience of any more regular composition than that of letters, and offers this as an apology for assuming such a form on the present occasion, "particularly as the greatest part was written at those places from whence the letters are dated." That the author has actually visited some or all the places he describes, we have no doubt, and that some part of his present remarks was occasionally communicated to his friends under an epistolary form, is highly probable; but as to his dates he might almost as well have said

have dispensed with them altogether; for what are we to learn from letters. commencing with "my dear friend, Sicily, 1812," which is the introduction of Letter I.; or, Sicily, 1811," which is that of Letter III. as though, like a snail, his mode of travelling had been backward. In Letter XVII. however, he once more advances to 1812, and even ventures to put the month of March to the date of the year, though still carefully concealing the particular day or period of the month in which he addressed his friend. With this letter his first volume closes: and in his second he steps back again to the year 1811, and continues this use of the old style till towards the close of the volume, when he dates from "Malta, 1812." The author may plead his inexperience as an apology as long as he pleases, but to us this generality of date has all the appearance in the world of an experienced and artful scheme for evading all possibility of detecting whether he were or were not at the places specified during the times so loosely referred to. He gives us also as little information as to the route of his tour or succession of his residences, and the authority of his connections, as he does of his times and seasons: though we should not omit to notice that he observes, in one place, with somewhat more of confidence than so much inexperience can well justify, "I should have most readily published their names, and acknowledged the obligations I am under to many persons in Sicily, and other places, who were so good as to contribute largely to my inquiries; but considering their respective situations, and the governments they live under, bringing them thus into notice, would, I am cer