"I presented myself at the grand vizier's levee, with several other couriers, from different parts of the empire, and delivered my dispatches. When he had inspected mine, he called me to him, and said aloud, 'You are welcome! You also were at Hamamlù? The infidels did not dare to face the Kizzil bashes, eh? The Persian horseman, and the Persian sword, after all, nobody can face. Your khan, I see, has been wounded; he is indeed one of the Shah's best servants. Well it was no worse. You must have had hot work on each bank of the river.'

"To all of this, and much more, I said 'Yes, yes,' and 'no, no,' as fast as the necessity of the remark required; and I enjoyed the satisfaction of being looked upon as a man just come out of a battle. The vizier then called to one of his mirzas or secretaries : 'Here,' said he, you must make out a fatteh numeh (a proclamation of victory), which must immediately be sent ' into the different provinces, particularly to Khorassan, in order to overawe the rebel khans there; and let the account be suited to the dignity and character of our victorious monarch. We are in want of a victory just at present; but, recollect, a good, substantial, and bloody victory.'

"How many strong were the enemy?' inquired the mirza, looking towards me. Bisyar, bisyar, many, many,' answered I, hesitating and embarrassed how many it would be agreeable that I should say. Put down fifty thousand,' said the vizier, coolly. How many killed?' said the mirza, looking first at the vizier, then at me. Write ten to fifteen thousand killed,' answered the minister; remember these letters have to travel a great distance. It is beneath the dignity of the Shah to kill less than his thousands and tens of thousands. Would you have him less than Rustam, and weaker than Afrasaib? No, our kings must be drinkers of blood, and slayers of men, to be held in estimation by their subjects and surrounding nations. Well,

"Yes, at your highness's service,' answered the mirza; 'I have written (reading from his paper) that the infidel dogs of Moscovites (whom Allah in his mercy impale on stakes of living fires!) dared to appear in arms to the number of fifty thousand, flanked and supported by a hundred mouths spouting fire and brimstone; but that as soon as the all-victorious armies of the Shah appeared, ten to fifteen thousand of them gave up their souls; whilst prisoners poured in in such vast numbers, that the prices of slaves have diminished one hundred per cent. in all the slave-markets of Asia.'

"Barikallah! Well done,' said the grand vizier. You have written well. If the thing be not exactly so, yet, by the good luck of the Shah, it will be, and therefore it amounts to the same thing. Truth is an excellent thing when it suits one's purpose; but very inconvenient when otherwise.'

"Yes,' said the mirza, as he looked up from his knee, upon which he rested his hand to write his letter, and quoting a well known passage in Saadi,

Falsehood, mixed with good intentions, is preferable to truth tending to excite strife.'

"The vizier then called for his shoes, rose from his seat, mounted the horse that was waiting for him at the door of his tent, and proceeded to the audience of the Shah, to give an account of the different despatches that he had just received. I followed him, and mixed in with his large retinue of servants, until he turned round to me, and said, 'You are dismissed; go, and take your rest.""

We said that Zeenab had been transferred to the Royal Harem. It was discovered that she had not entered those sacred precincts a virgin; she is condemned to death, and Hajji himself is ordered to see the last rites performed to the hapless victim of his own passions:

"The night was dark and louring, and well suited to the horrid scene about to be acted. The sun, unusual in these climates, had set, surrounded by clouds of the colour of blood; and, as the night advanced, they rolled on in unceasing thunders over the summits of the adjacent range of Albors. At sudden intervals the moon was seen through the dense vapour, which

covered her again as suddenly, and restored the night to its darkness and solemnity. I was seated lonely in the guard room of the palace, when I heard the cries of the sentinels on the watch-towers, announcing midnight, and the voices of the muezzins from the mosques, the wild notes of whose chant floating on the wind, ran through my veins with the chilling creep of death, and announced to me that the hour of murder was at hand! They were the harbingers of death to the helpless woman. Istarted up,-I could not bear to hear them more,-I rushed on in desperate haste, and as I came to the appointed spot, I found my five companions already arrived, sitting unconcerned on and about the coffin that was to carry my Zeenab to her eternal mansion. The only word which I had power to say to them was, 'Shoud?' Is it done? to which they answered, "Ne shoud,' it is not done. To which ensued an awful silence. I had hoped that all was over, and that I should have been spared every other horror, excepting that of conducting the melancholy procession to the place of burial; but no, the deed was still to be done, and I could not retreat.

"On the confines of the apartments allotted to the women in the Shah's palace stands a high octagonal tower, some thirty gez in height, seen conspicuous from all parts of the city, at the summit of which is a chamber, in which he frequently reposes and takes the air. It is surrounded by unappropriated ground, and the principal gate of the harem is close to its base. On the top of all is a terrace (a spot, ah! never by me to be forgotten!) and it was to this that our whole attention was now rivetted. I had scarcely ar. rived, when, looking up, we saw three figures, two men and a female, whose forms were lighted up by an occasional gleam of moonshine, that shone in a wild and uncertain manner upon them. They seemed to drag their victim between them with much violence, whilst she was seen in attitudes of supplication, on her knees, with her hands extended, and in all the agony of the deepest desperation. When they were at the brink of the tower her shrieks were audible, but so wild, so varied by the blasts of wind that blew round the building, that they appeared to me like the sounds of laughing madness.

"We all kept a dead and breathless silence even my five ruffians seemed

moved-I was transfixed like a lump of lifeless clay, and if I am asked what my sensations were at the time, I should be at a loss to describe themI was totally inanimate, and still I knew what was going on. At length, one loud, shrill, and searching scream of the bitterest woe was heard, which was suddenly lost in an interval of the most frightful silence. A heavy fall, which immediately succeeded, told us that all was over. I was then roused, and with my head confused, half crazed and half conscious, I immediately rushed to the spot, where my Zeenab and her burthen lay struggling, a mangled and mutilated corpse. She still breathed, but the convulsions of death were upon her, and her lips moved as if she would speak, although the blood was fast flowing from her mouth. I could not catch a word, although she uttered sounds that seemed like words. I thought she said, 'My child! my child!' but perhaps it was an illusion of my brain. I hung over her in the deepest despair, and having lost all sense of prudence and self-preservation, I acted so much up to my own feelings, that if the men around me had had the smallest suspicion of my real situation, nothing could have saved me from destruction. I even carried my phrensy so far as to steep my handkerchief in her blood, saying to myself, this, at least, shall never part from me!' I came to myself, however, upon hearing the shrill and dæmon-like voice of one of her murderers from the tower's height, crying out, 'Is she dead?' 'Aye, as a stone,' answered one of my ruffians. Carry her away then,' said the voice. To hell, yourself,' in a suppressed tone, said another ruffian; upon which my men lifted the dead body into the taboot, placed it upon their shoulders, and walked off to the burial-ground without the city, where they found a grave ready dug to receive it. I walked mechanically after them, absorbed in most melancholy thoughts, and when we arrived at the burial place, I sat myself down on a gravestone, scarcely conscious of what was going on. I watched the operations of the Nasackchies with a sort of unmeaning stare; saw them place the dead body in the earth; then shovel the mould over it; then place two stones, one at the feet and the other at the head. When they had finished, they came up to me and said that all was

done:' to which I answered, Go home; I will follow.' They left me seated on the grave, and returned to the town.

"The night continued dark, and distant thunders still echoed through the mountains. No other sound was heard, save now and then the infantlike cries of the jackall that now in packs, and then by two or three at a time, kept prowling round the mansions of the dead."

This is in the best style of Anastasius, and convinces us of the identity of the author.

Hajji now flies in despair from the residence of the court; but fearful of being discovered by the agents of the Shah, he takes refuge within the sacred precincts of the tomb of Fatimeh, which enjoys the privilege of the sanctuary. The description of priestly hypocrisy, and of his own affected observance of religious rites, is sufficiently well drawn to be offensive. After a short period he is permitted to return to Ispahan in time to close the eyes of his dying father. The wickedness of his mother and his old schoolmaster deprives him of the greater part of his father's wealth; and he goes forth once more into the world as an adventurer. This is an amusing portion of the work, and though a little too minute in its details, and too much loaded with allusions to, and descriptions of oriental manners and customs, is extremely graphic and lively. His adventures are strangely varied, and full of all that sort of peril, which attaches to the actions of a man eager to turn every thing to his own advantage, and little scrupulous as to the delicacy and honesty of the means. He at last resolves to turn pipe-merchant, and sets off for Constantinople, under the advice and protection of his old master, Osman Aga. Here he attracts the notice and captivates the affections of a young, rich, and handsome Turkish widow. She proposes to marry him; but requires, in the first place, some account of his family and fortune.

"Although I was not prepared for this, yet such was the quickness with which I had seized the whole extent of the good fortune awaiting me, that with the same quickness I without hesitation said, Family? Family, did you say? Who is there that does not know Hajji Baba? Let him inquire from the confines of Yemen to

those of Iråk, and from the seas of Hind to the shores of the Caspian, and his name will be well known." "But who was your father?' said the old woman.

"My father?' said I, after a pause, 'he was a man of great power. More heads came under his thumb, and he took more men with impunity by the beard, than even the chief of the Wahabi himself.'

"I had now gained sufficient time to arrange a little off-hand genealogy for myself; and as the old woman's countenance expanded at what I had said, I continued to speak to her after this manner:

"If your mistress wants high blood, then let her look to me. Be assured, that she and her brothers, be they who they may, will never exceed me in descent. Arab blood flows in my veins, and that of the purest kind. My ancestor was a Mansouri Arab, from the province of Nedj in Arabia Felix, who, with the whole of his tribe was established by Shah Ismael of Persia in some of the finest pastures of Irak, and where they have lived ever since. My great ancestor Kâtir, ben Khur, ben Asp, ben Al Madian, was of the tribe of Koreish, and that brought him in direct relationship with the family of our blessed Prophet, from whom all the best blood of Islam flows.'

"Allah, Allah!' exclaimed the old woman, enough, enough. If you are all this, my mistress wants no more. And if your riches are equal to your birth, we shall be entirely satisfied."

"As for my riches,' said I, I cannot boast of much cash; but what merchant ever has cash at command? you must know as well as myself, that it is always laid out in merchandize, which is dispersed over different parts of the world, and which in due time returns back to him with increase. My Persian silks and velvets are now travelling into Khorassan, and will bring me back the lamb-skins of Bokhara. My agents, provided with gold and otter skins, are ready at Meshed to buy the shawls of Cashmire, and the precious stones of India. At Astracan, my cotton stuffs are to be bartered against sables, cloth, and glass-ware; and the Indian goods which I buy at Bassorah and send to Aleppo, are to return to me in the shape of skull caps and shalli stuffs. In short, to say precisely what I am worth, would be as difficult as to count the ears in a field

of wheat; but you may safely tell your mistress that the man of her choice, whenever he gathers his wealth together, will astonish her and her family by its extent.'

They are married; but poor Hajjî, unable to withstand the temptation of sudden prosperity, indulges in the most boundless prodigality, and excites the jealousy and hatred of his countrymen. Through their means his lies are detected, his impostures exposed, and he is shamefully expelled from the habitation of his new wife. In his destitution he flies to the Persian ambassador, and after recounting to him the history of his life, is taken into his household, partly as a secretary and partly as a spy. In the course of his duties in the latter of these employments, we are presented with some well-written satirical sketches of European character and customs. Hajji returns to Persia, and by making himself of service to the Vizier, is at last appointed chief secretary of the embassy to England. At this point the narrative breaks off, with a promise of continuation at some future period. We trust that such period may soon arrive. A more lively, pleasant, and facetious book we have not lately read; and setting aside its merely agreeable qualities, it is entitled, on the ground of its instructive pictures of Persian manners, to very considerable praise.

sport with the old man." Accordingly they consulted each other, and soon resolved in what manner they would divert themselves on this occasion; namely, by compelling him to preach them a sermon in the stump of a hollow tree that happened to be on the spot. Mr. Dod kept jogging on, little thinking of any plot forming against him. At length he arrived where the students were waiting for him; the compliments of the meeting having passed, they enquired of the good man if the report they had heard of his having preached against drunkenness of late was true. Mr. Dod replied, the prevalency of such evils, and especially amongst those from whom better things might be expected, he could not dispence with a delay in reproving, consistent with his public character as a minister, therefore he had inveighed against a vice so detestable in the sight of God and all good men. The collegians then said they had a favour to request of him, that he would indulge them with a sermon from a text of their own choosing. To this Mr. Dod replied in the negative, alleging it was highly unreasonable to require a man publicly to deliver his sentiments upon any subject, without first giving him an opportunity to ruminate the same in his own thoughts in private. "Besides," added he, "I am upon a journey ín pursuit of other concerns at present, therefore I desire you will lay aside and desist from any farther solicitations in this affair." To which the students

MALT,

Preached in the Stump of a hollow Tree, by the Rev. John Dod, M. A. author of the most Approved Sayings.

The Drunkard feels his vitals waste, Yet drowns his health to please his taste, Till all his active powers are lost, And fainting life draws near the dust. Mr. Dod being for some time in a village near Cambridge, and having frequently observed the irregular behaviour of some of the students of the University, particularly excess in drinking, to which they were greatly addicted, took occasion to explode such practices in public from the pulpit. It happened some time after that several of these young sparks riding out, met Mr. Dod on the road; they saw him some distance off, and immediately, on the first sight of him, cried out, "here comes father Dod, now we'll have some

suaded he was master of elocution, and never at a loss for matter upon any subject, that they could not bear the thoughts of denial, and perhaps a fair opportunity might never again pre sent itself. Mr. Dod seeing himself thus beset, replied, "Well, gentlemen, as you are thus urgent for my compliance, pray what is the subject I am to handle." They answered the word is Malt; and for the want of a better, here, sir, is your pulpit, pointing to the stump of a hollow tree at hand. Hereupon the venerable man mounted the rostrum, and addressed his hearers in the following manner:

"Beloved, I am a little man, come at a short warning, to deliver a brief discourse, upon a small subject, to a thin congregation, and from an unworthy pulpit. Beloved, my text is Malt: it cannot be divided into words, it being but one, therefore of necessity I must