work. At last Anastasius obtains his liberty; but he is scarcely out of prison before he gets into the hospital. His next appearance is as a laquais de place, and interpreter to foreign visitors at Constantinople. A love adventure lifts him again into prosperity; and the danger into which the prosecution of it leads him, brings about what he had long meditated-his conversion to Islamism. The manner in which his amour with the fair Esme is hurried over, prevents the reader from feeling much interest in the narrative; and the omission of the means used to carry on the intrigue does not argue much for the fertility of the author's invention. In comparing this book with Gil Blas, to which it bears some analogy, the characters of the French author pass before us like figures in a camera with all the colouring and truth of nature;— those in Anastasius often glide by, as in the present instance, like the Ombres Chinoises, with a well designed outline, but without any filling up. Anastasius, under the new name of Selim, soon learns all that appertains to a true Turk, and continues as accomplished a scoundrel in his new, as he had been in his old faith. At length the news of his mother's death induces him to revisit his native island, in order to recover, in his quality of Moslemin, the estate which she had bequeathed to his sister.

The voyage affords Mr. Hope fresh opportunity for the display of that lively colouring and dramatic effect which give so vivid a reality to his descriptions.

Just as we got under sail, an Israelite, who had heroically determined to go by water whither he could not get by land, begged admittance. He pleaded poverty so piteously that no other conditions were attached to the granting of this favour, save the diversion he might afford. Another Jew, seeing his countryman so readily taken in, begged hard for the same boon; but the sailors, thinking they had provided sufficient pastime for the voyage, now became obdurate, and when the supplicant attempted to creep up the sides of the vessel, stoutly beat him off. In this ungracious operation no one was more active than his brother Jew, who, concealed behind the sailors, gave him with his stick the last rap over the knuckles, which put an end to his attempts. I could not help noticing this want of charity in one who had experienced ours so recently: but, on imparting to Mordecai my feelings on that subject, I found he was acting from the very impulse of that virtue in which I thought him deficient. The other Jew, he informed us, was an arrant rogue, and if admitted, no one could tell what mischief he might do.'

The vessel is becalmed on her passage. Anastasius, under the oppression of ennui, prays for any relief from so horrible a tedium, and his prayer is immediately answered by a tremendous

storm.

'When the tempest became so furious that a crew ten times more

numerous

numerous than ours would have found ample employment, each sailor left off his work to fall upon his knees and say his prayers. Had St Spiridion, the protector general of ships in distress, been ears all over, he scarce could have heard or have heeded half the vows addressed to him on this occasion. But the more we prayed, the more the blast increased, until our ship must inevitably have sunk, had not the sailors at last most providentially hit upon an infallible expedient for appeas ing the tempest.'-vol. i. p. 230.

This was to fling the poor Jew over board, as a sacrifice to the angry waves:-but we must hasten on. The storm abates, and Anastasius pursues his voyage, returns to his native town and seeks an interview with his father, who drives him with reproaches from his presence. He also hears of the tragical end of Helena, who perished in bringing into the world a lifeless child; and a letter, addressed to him, which had been consigned by her to the care of the female attendant who supported her in her last moments, is now put into his hands:

'I neither reproach you with my ruin, which was my own fault, nor with your want of love, which was not yours. It depends not on ourselves to love; but it does to be merciful, and you were inhuman: you deliberately pierced that heart in which you were worshipped; and of this deed I die.'

After an amusing account of the manner in which he recovers his mother's estate from the gripe of a knavish relation, Anastasius directs his course towards Egypt, inflamed, by the account he hears of that country, with a desire to enrol himself amongst the Mamelukes; and, filled with the most ambitious hopes of future fame and fortune, he arrives at Alexandria. This is the dullest portion of the book. We are plunged over head and ears into the history of the Caliphs, the Sultans, the Beys and the Mamelukes; all which may be better read, and, what is as much to the purpose, sooner read,-in Volney, Savary, or Bruce.

Anastasius rises rapidly to the height of power. His skill in" martial exercises recommends him to his patron Bey; whose life he has the further good fortune to save, by administering a dose of James's powders! His first advancement is to the office of Caimakam, and soon afterwards he obtains the hand of the Bey's daughter in marriage, and becomes Kiashef of a province. His fall is as rapid as his elevation. His wife dies, and in the civil war which takes place amongst the Beys, his interests are sacrificed. The hero of the history makes his escape from Egypt by way of the Red Sea;-and the reader will rejoice at his own deliverance from this country, in which he has had to work his way through many a page of bondage. It would seem as if the climate, to which, during his residence in it, Anastasius attributes such bane

ful

:ful effects, had exerted its enervating influence over his narration, for we certainly seem to imbibe from the perusal much of the 'languor, listlessness and apathy with which its humid exhalations by degrees affect foreigners.' When this languor is interrupted by incidents, they are of a character to offer continual violence to probability. It is a good maxim which recommends a wise man not to tell such a truth as all the world will believe to be a lie. If Anastasius had attended to this rule, much of the contents of these chapters would have been suppressed, or rendered more probable. There are, however, in this, as in every other part of the work, occasional bright spots, which will cheer the reader in his progress. The death of Assad is a picture worthy of the pencil of Spagnoletto; and the horrors of a famine are described in terms that chill the blood.

There is, we fear, no human enjoyment without alloy; we had scarcely finished congratulating ourselves upon our safe passage of the Red Sea, when the seventh and eighth chapters stopped the current of our feelings. The attempts of Spiridion, the friend of Anastasius, to recall him from his apostasy are so long and so tedious-we wander in such a desert-that we are almost incilned to wish ourselves back among the Egyptians. These two friends are made to navigate the Archipelago together for no other purpose, as it would seem, but to debate the question of Liberty and Necessity; and we sympathise in the complaint of Anastasius, who angrily interrupts the reasonings of his friend, exclaiming it is unfair to get me into a small boat out at sea, in order to pursue me with lectures from which I cannot escape.' The arguments for Necessity are combated so weakly that it would lead us to infer the author leaned to that side of the question;—but we have no intention of following him. All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it,' said Johnson in conversing upon this question; we feel that we are free, and there's an end on't.'

After a series of adventures, Spiridion, who had abandoned his duty as a son to devote himself to the call of friendship, and left the house of his father to follow Anastasius, with the hope of effecting his reformation; finding all his efforts fruitless, bids him farewell, and leaves him to his fate. That fate leads him a strange dance over land and sea, through sickness and sorrow, carrying him back to Egypt, and thence again to Constantinople, till at length it conducts him into Wallachia, of which province his old acquaintance Mavroyeni has risen to be governor, or rather, as his title is,-Hospodar. The cares of ambition, and the miseries of greatness, are exhibited with much force in the character of Mavroyeni. In this part of the story we are again

reminded

reminded of Gil Blas, in the service of Count Olivarez, be tween whom and the Greek there is some resemblance, parti cularly in the invisible spectre by which they are both haunted. Anastasius had brought with him letters of introduction from the most powerful personages in the Turkish empire; but, knowing the character of his old master, he fears lest the very weight of his recommendations may induce him, in order to shew his independence, to receive his former favourite with greater coolness. Instead, therefore, of announcing, in an authoritative tone, upon his arrival at the palace, that he is the bearer of letters from the Captain Pasha, and the Grand Visier, he presents himself in a modest dress, and creeps into the audience-chamber with the humblest air, standing demurely with his hands in his sleeves at the lower end of the room. The confusion of the courtiers, when the obscure neglected stranger is summoned into the actual presence of the governor, is sketched with the same happy power of dramatic description, which we have before noticed.

By judiciously playing upon the weakness of his patron, Anastasius soon gains his favour completely, and is appointed to a high command in his army. In the mean time the political horizon is darkened. War breaks out between the Sublime Porte, and Russia and Austria. Wallachia is threatened by the latter; and the Grand Visier, in order to satisfy the politicians of Constantinople, who had begun to murmur at his inactivity, sends orders to Mavroyeni to force the passes between Wallachia and Transilvania. The execution of these orders falls to Anastasius and his Arnaoots, who work wonders throughout the whole struggle there is, in particular, a spirited account of their attack upon an Austrian corps. The campaign, however, terminates in discomfiture, and retreat, and Mavroyeni is chased from his dominions. The Visier, who is equally unsuccessful, makes use of Mavroyeni's defeat to excuse himself, and throws upon him the whole blame of his own disaster, so that the unfortunate prince considers his ruin as inevitable.

Anastasius leaves his master to return to Constantinople, and endeavours to cheer him with hopes of being able to effect something in his favour. Shifting his quarters from one place to another, as if to elude pursuit, the Hospodar still hovers over the bounds of his principality like the moth which, with wings already singed, still flies around the candle; but at every circle narrows more and more its orbit, until it pitches on the spot marked for its final fate.'

'To Mavroyeni this spot was Bella. There it was that suddenly ap peared before the Bey, no longer a mere airy phantom, but the Capid

jee

I

jee of flesh and blood, commissioned to confer upon him the palm of martyrdom. Mavroyeni had kept in reserve, when all other means should fail, an expedient on which he placed implicit reliance." My firm conviction," said he to the Sultan's messenger-" has always been that a good Christian must be a bad subject. For how can he shew zeal for his sovereign and his country, whose religion enjoins entire detachment from this nether world? I therefore have long inwardly bowed to the truth of Islamism; and now only wish publicly to embrace its holy law, and to be numbered among the faithful." Upon this the prince took from his bosom a small koran, which he carried on purpose, kissed it devoutly, and desired to make his profession of faith. Such a request even a Capidjee durst not deny him: he was suffered to perform at his full leisure his orisons, his genuflexions, and his ablutions: and not until all was concluded did the Capidjee express bis satisfaction at being now enabled to send to heaven so sincere a believer.'-vol. iii. p. 358.

In the whole of this there is too much of real history, and of that sort of history too, which is neither important nor impressive. We can contemplate with pleasure the well imagined thoughts and actions of the unfortunate Mary Stuart in her prison at Loch-leven; but we are neither delighted nor interested in the unprofitable squabbles of Turks and Russians in the wilds of Wallachia and Moldavia. The introduction of such topics is injudicious in a work of this kind; for before we have time to refresh our memories by a reference to historical authorities, the scene changes, and we are whisked away to follow Anastasius through a new series of adventures, under a new character. The love of money now becomes his ruling passion, and Selim,— the gay, the extravagant, the dissipated Selim,-is transformed into a plodding financier; carefully calculating the interest of each incoming piastre; cultivating the acquaintance only of steady punctual dealers; looking with pity on the extravagance of spend- thrifts; lending money at fifty per cent.; and as proud of a shabby coat and a half-starved waiting boy as he had formerly been of the splendour of his dress and the number of his retinue. Alcibiades of old prided himself upon his power of accommodating himself to all situations, in excelling the Spartans in abstemiousness, and in outdoing the Persians in luxury. The character of the Modern Greek is, we believe, equally pliant, but this sudden transformation is so unskilfully related as to stagger belief. There are no accompanying circumstances to account for the change; and if we could believe such a complete revolution of temper and habits possible, it could only tend to make the next metamorphosis more incredible;-for in a few chapters this patient, plodding calculator (who acquires a large fortune by trade in two months, in a sort of hocus pocus way which is not explained)

is