THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR NOVEMBER, 1812.

Art. I. Travels in various Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. By Edward Daniel Clarke, L.L.D. Part the second. Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. Section the first. 4to. pp. 714. Price 41. 4s. Cadell and Davies. 1812.

WE gladly resume the consideration of Dr. Clarke's Travels. The present volume is a continuation of that formerly published by the same author, of which a very ample summary will be found in some of the preceding numbers of this journal. To the merits of that publication we there gave a very decided testimony; nor are we disposed now to subtract a syllable from what we at that time said in its praise. On one head of accusation, indeed, against the author, we are inclined to think that we were then less copious than perhaps the occasion required,-an omission not unnatural, in the discharge of the more agreeable office of pointing out to the consideration of our readers, the interesting and valuable matter by which our own attention had been attracted and engaged. The fault to which we allude, is an habitual exaggeration in the descriptions given by Dr. Clarke of the debasement of the Russian character, and especially, in so much of that description, as more immediately applies to the habits and manners of the higher classes of society. That the views of these subjects, exhibited in the former volume of this work, are faithful transcripts of the impressions made by what he saw and heard on the mind of the writer, will be doubted by no man who has the happiness of knowing Dr. Clarke, or who has had the good fortune to read his book. But then it must be remembered, that he saw the Russian Empire at a most unfavorable moment, and while under the dominion of a ferocious madman-that he was exposed to VOL. VIII.

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some personal ill-usage-that he resided but a short time at St. Petersburgh, and, as is more than suspected, was rather unlucky in the social circles among which he was thrownthat much of what is most offensive in his representations is told merely as the result of other men's opinions-and that he listened to the accounts he received with little opportunity, and apparently without much disposition to scrutinize their accuracy. But even in the absence of these grounds of distrust, there appears considerable reason to doubt the perfect fidelity of Dr. Clarke's portraits of Russian society. Notwithstanding the endless varieties in the situa tion and circumstances of mankind, there is still, among all nations and languages, a near approach to identity in the larger features of the human character, not less than in the general outline of the human form. The Yahoo is at least as unnatural a being as the Lilliputian-and Dr. Clarke' Russians have too much of the Yahoo in their constitution, not to induce a very strong suspicion of the truth of the re semblance. The book, in fact, we have reason to know, was received at St. Petersburgh with no little astonishment, and probably not without some mixture of irritation. "Your countrymen certainly think but meanly of us"-was a remark frequently made to an English gentleman then residing in that capital: "but do you believe that there is one man in England, who will give credit to such a story as this?" But, on the whole, we owe too much to Dr. Clarke, to feel disposed to pursue any further a censure, which may seem to diminish the value of the praise we formerly bestowed on his very valuable and important work.

At this moment, however, our recollections of that interesting narrative, are associated with thoughts too serious and too sad to be hastily dismissed. "Moscow is no more." That splendid monument of barbaric greatness, the centre of the affections, the hopes, and sympathies of thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow men, has been swept from off the face of the earth, or exists only as the dreadful tomb of its former inhabitants."How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! how is she become a widow ! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!" Wise unquestionably, and benevolent as wise, are all the purposes of the great moral ruler of the world: but while we humbly acquiesce in his will, and repress our useless execrations against the monster who has been selected by him to be the Scourge of mankind, it is yet impossible without horror, or without an aching heart, to contemplate these sad scenes, at

once the proof and the punishment of human depravity. On the probable event of this great contest, it would be now idle to speculate, even were this the proper occasion for such inquiries. But if, as some amongst us are disposed to believe, the struggle is still to be protracted, it then indeed becomes material to ascertain the character of that important body of men, who form the natural aristocracy of the Russian Empire. It is in this view that Dr. Clarke's publication, the latest, the most learned and elaborate account we possess of the state of society in that country, acquires an interest which belongs to the writings of no other traveller. In this view, also, it becomes a matter of no light moment, to inquire into his pretensions to the praise of an impartial and a competent judge of natural character. Our opinion on that subject, we have already expressed with what qualifications it is held, will more fully and properly appear in the course of this article.

The volume which we have now to examine, contains the result of Dr. Clarke's reflections, made during a journey of about six months continuance, through Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. Of these countries, already so amply described by Shaw, Pococke, Maundrell, and Chandler, our information is singularly minute and copious-so copious, indeed, as, in the opinion of many, to have contracted the duties of a writer of travels in the present day, to little more than the correction of the errors of his predecessors. We are not, however, disposed to be very fastidious in lamenting the multiplication of books, which do really contain any kind of accurate knowledge. It is, no doubt, too late now to expect to hear much which we have not, in substance, heard before, of the usages, or habits, or even of the antiquities of Constantinople or Greece: but the observations made on these interesting regions by such a man as Dr. Clarke, can never be unimportant; never, at least, so long as we have, on the subject of which he treats, any error to rectify, or any prejudices to remove or while men will persist in prefer ring the works of a fashionable cotemporary author, to the antiquated researches of our less lively and entertaining forefathers.

It would, however, be very unjust, were we to attribute the high celebrity of Dr. Clarke's volumes, to any other cause than their own very great and somewhat peculiar merit. He is in fact a writer of travels, such as has but seldom appeared in any period of our literary history, and such as, till the publication of his work, was wholly unknown in our own days. And first of all, he is in his character of a traveller,

remarkably exempt from the common failings of his cotemporaries. Though obviously of a temperament of mind rather exposed to error from an excess, than from any deficiency of warmth in his social affections, he makes no sort of parade of fine feelings and overflowing sentiment. And though it is quite beyond question that his attainments in geology, and in botanical and mineralogical science, are very considerable, yet he never forgets that the bulk of his readers, those for whose instruction he writes, are neither mineralogists, nor botanists, nor geologists. The information on these branches of natural history which he collected in the course of his journey, he has, accordingly, compressed into a space comparatively narrow; wisely resisting the temptation of inserting in his book philosophical essays, at once wearisome from their length to those who are ignorant of the subject, and, from their necessary brevity, unsatisfactory to those who are conversant with it. Moreover, although Dr. Clarke possesses an almost unequalled power of conveying to his readers, without the aid of painting, a conception of the scenes he visits, scarcely less lively than that which painting itself could furnish; yet is he contented to leave undescribed all the wonders of art, and all the enchanting natural scenery, which he passed in his route, except where others had left unnoticed what it is really material to the subject he treats of to describe. He possesses, in a word, one excellence inseparably connected, we believe, with qualities still more valuable than even mere intellectual superiority-we mean a total absence of ostentation, in the display of very rare and valuable accomplishments. In addition to what we formerly said of the general character of Dr. Clarke's composition, it may now be added, that his style is eminently adapted to the easy kind of narrative, in which a sensible man naturally writes the history of his own travels. It is simple, versatile, and copious-occasionally, indeed, bearing an unpleasant resemblance to the manner of Gibbon, and, in its more laboured passages, somewhat over-wrought and turgid.

As compared with his former volume, it is not improbable that the majority of readers will esteem the present a little uninteresting. For one man who will study a quarto volume of travels through the Troad, the Greek Islands, and the Holy Land, you shall probably find a hundred, who will peruse with delight the new, lively, and unexpected detail, given by Dr. Clarke of the habits and manners of the Russians and Cossacks. We all love to contemplate animated pictures, whether accurate or inaccurate, of the character of