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garden; long before sunset there is sure to be a battle royal between the females, headed by princesses, and the Gebrs, who resist the wholesale robbery of flowers and fruits.

The Caliph Omar is an object of intense hatred to the Persians, and on the anniversary of his assassination, the imprecations on his memory and name are loud and frequent. The women evince their pious hatred in practical jokes which savour of a boy's school.

Perched on the flat roof of their houses overlooking the street, and armed with a large pot of water, they lie in wait for passers by, and the heedless passenger is soused with water, while a triumphant scream proclaims, 'Omar, God curse him.'

The dervishes have a peculiar way of begging; they sit down in any place where their presence is most likely to be disagreeable, and sow a field of wheat, a yard square, round about them. They are armed with a cow's horn, and stout lungs, and they declare their intention to scream and trumpet away incessantly till harvest time, unless bribed into migration. The application of force would seriously offend the religions prejudices of the people. An English resident at Bushire once thought to tire the dervish out, but three days' incessant yelling and cow-horning brought him to the verge of submission, when he recollected that his flagstaff, which was in the centre of the dervish's field, required washing, and getting a stout crew from a ship in the roads, each armed with a bucket of water, he commenced operations, and thus drenched the dervish into a hasty retreat. The Indian creditor, in his system of dunning, is equally annoying, but far more dignified. He haunts his debtor from daylight to dark, and wherever the latter appears, whether alone or in the gay throng, places himself before him, salaams respectfully, and maintains that dead silence which tells every body the object of his visit.

Lady Sheil recounts in detail the commemoration of the slaughter of Ibram Hoossein and his family in the desert of Kerbella, by the troops of Yerzud, king of Damascus, the head of Hoossein being cut off by Shimr. The commemoration is a

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theatrical performance, and su premely tragi-comic it must be. So lively is their recollection of the cruelties perpetrated upon the grandson of the Prophet, and so concentrated their hatred of Shimr, who decapitated him, that the unfortunate wight who enacts Shimr runs great risk of falling a victim to Lynch law at the hands of the ladies. The theatre was capable of containing several thousand people; the stage and all its mysteries were open to public gaze, as it consisted of a simple platform raised a few feet from the ground, like the Lilliputian arena in Saville House. The Shah and all the dignitaries attended in boxes set apart for them, but the multitude fought lustily for their places with tongue and muscle, the ladies pitching into one another with their iron-heeled slippers, exhibiting a dexterity in their use which proved their long apprenticeship. All the characters are made as real as Persian dramatic art can produce. The slaughter of Hoossein and all his family is carefully performed, and convulses the whole house, male and female, with hysterical sobs. So catching are the thrillings of grief, that Lady Sheil found herself sobbing away as heartily as the best of them. Saints, prophets, and angels, come down from the skies to share in the general distress. Gabriel descends with his ministering angels; Moses appears, clad as an Arab sheikh; our Saviour is seen in the garb of poverty, and attended by two females, supposed to be his wives (!); and Mahomet, the grandpapa of the victim, is bedizened with silvered silk, and Cashmere shawls ad infinitum. The whole terminates with the interment of the murdered family at Kerbella, which has thus become a place of pilgrimage, scarce inferior in importance to that of the grandpapa, and possessing one advantage over the latter in being more easily reached by the hajjs.

We now pass on from the representation of the past, to the realities of the present, and introduce the reader to the dowager Mrs. Shah. This lady, and not the Shah's principal wife, rules supreme among the womankind at court. She is called the Khanum, or lady, as Napoleon

called his mother par excellence, Madame. Her age is forty, but we read that she does not look more than thirty, which is the more extraordinary, as an Eastern female at thirty generally looks double her

She is also said to be very age. clever, and to have a finger in the pie of government. She saluted our authoress upon her presentation with sundry Persian compliments, hoping that Her heart had not grown narrow,' that 'her nose was fat,' &c. &c. We now come to the dress of the Khanum, and here we must allow Lady Sheil to speak for herself.

The Shah's mother was dressed with great magnificence. She wore a pair of trowsers of gold brocade. These Persian trowsers are always, as I have before remarked, very wide, each leg being, when the means of the wearer allow it, wider than the skirt of a gown, so that they have the effect of an exceedingly ample petticoat; and as crenolines are unknown, the élégantes wear ten and eleven pairs of trowsers, one over the other, in order to make up for the want of the above important invention. But to return to the Shah's mother. Her trowsers were edged with a border of pearls embroidered on braid. She had a thin blue crèpe chemisette, also trimmed with pearls; this chemisette hung down a little below the waist, nearly meeting the top of the trowsers, which are fastened by a running string. As there was nothing under the thin gauze, the result, of course, was more display than is usual in Europe. A small jacket of velvet was over the chemisette, reaching to the waist, but not made to close in front; and on the head a small shawl, pinned under the chin ; on the shawl were fastened strings of large pearls and diamond sprigs. Her arms were covered with handsome bracelets, and her neck with a variety of costly necklaces. Her hair was in bands, and hung down under the shawl in a multitude of small plaits. She wore no shoes, her feet being covered with fine Cashmere stockings. The palms of her hands and the tips of her fingers were dyed red with a herb called henna, and the edges of the inner part of the eyelids were coloured with antimony. Her cheeks were well rouged, as is the invariable custom among Persian women of all classes. We were surrounded by ladies, who attended as if they had been ser vants. No one was seated except the Shah's mother, his wives, and myself.

On the foregoing delicate subject

we offer no criticism-it is far too intricate; but on the broad question of female attire among the upper classes of civilized nations, we would hazard the general observation that, if they dispensed with one half of it, it would be an advantage to their health and to their husbands' pockets. The hoop mania appears to be coming on in a more solid and aggravating form. On the occasion of paying a visit to the Shah's halfsister, a beautiful girl of fifteen, she was quite surprised to hear that European ladies took the trouble to undress every night, and she asked if it was true that they put on a long white dress to pass the night in. They never undress except to go to the bath, or to take off garments put on for a ceremony. At night they untie their thin mattrass from its silken cover, and roll themselves up in the wadded quilt which forms their blanket. In short, as sailors would say, 'they turn in, all standing. In many ways the life of a Persian lady is independent enough, and it would seem, from Lady Sheil's account, that jealousy does not disturb their harmony very often; but her ideas of abundance of liberty, more so than amongst us,' quite startle our notions of propriety. Let us see what this liberty consists in :

The complete envelopment of the face and person disguises them effectually from the nearest relatives, and destroying when convenient all distinction of rank, gives unrestrained freedom.

A bal masqué may be a harmless amusement once in a way, but if the country become the theatre, and the whole fair sex act the masks, we should hesitate to desecrate the term liberty by applying it to such 'unrestrained freedom.'

Before quitting the subject of Persian character, we may as well extract from the Appendix the opinions which her husband has recorded of the men. He observes :

My intercourse with them gave me a favourable impression of their dispositions. As a man of the world, a Persian is generally a very agreeable and rather amiable person, unless when his insatiable greediness of power, money, or intrigue is excited, at which time he is a bad specimen of humanity, and will pause at no wickedness; yet nowhere does one hear so much talking and praise

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of goodness and virtue.

As the normal state of two-thirds of the nation is an avidity for power and money, their moral state may be conceived. When not engaged in the indulgence of the above, and one or two other propensities, the dolce far niente existence has irresistible attractions to a Persian. .

In their drinking parties they are reported, among even the highest classes, to exceed all bounds of discretion. Half

a-dozen boon companions meet at night. The floor is covered with a variety of stimulating dishes to excite drinking, for which no provocation whatever is required. Singers and dancing-boys enliven the scene. A Persian despises a wine-glass; a tumbler is his measure. He has an aversion to heeltaps, and he drains his glass to the dregs, with his left hand under his chin to catch the drops of wine, lest he should be detected the next morning in respectable society by the marks on his dress. They begin with pleasant conversation, scandal, and gossip; then they become personal, quarrelsome, abusive, and indecent, after the unimaginable Persian fashion. As the orgies advance, as the mirth waxes fast and furious, all restraint is thrown aside. They strip themselves stark naked, dance, and play all sorts of antics and childish tricks. One dips his head and face into a bowl of curds, and dances a solo to the admiring topers, while another places a large deeg, or cooking-pot, on his head, and displays his graces and attitudes on the light fantastic toe, or rather heel.

Could any one that had not been suckled on the Emerald Isle have ever penned such a character as the foregoing? First, we have a favourable impression of their disposition, and the declaration that they are agreeable and amiable; then follows the assertion that two-thirds of the nation pause at nothing in their insatiate greed for power, money, and intrigue; when not engaged in these debasing pursuits,which are followed reckless of law human or divine, other darker propensities, which he prudently shrinks from naming, are hinted at; and a dolce far niente forms the occupation of the remaining third of the population. The whole winds up with a description of a saturnalia, which, although truthfulness required our recording it, we feel we owe some apology to our readers for having introduced. We leave the Minister in the free enjoy ment of his opinions and his friendships; but if we give credit to his

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assertions, we must denounce the Persian as one of the most degraded of the human race. Whether the scenes we have been describing have any effect on their offspring or not, it may be difficult to say, but it appears certain that the population of Persia does not increase, and that three children only in ten outlive their third year. This frightful mortality may be partly owing to the nurses, who deal with children à la Palmer, and give them large pieces of opium to quiet them.

The fast of the Ramazan is so well known, that we only allude to it here to show how difficult it is for one person to estimate the sufferings of others. Lady Sheil, in her Romanistic zeal, remarks:

I hardly know which is to be considered as most severe, the Lent of Catholics, when properly observed, or the Ramazan. In the former, liquids are not prohibited, but only a single meal in the twenty-four hours is admissible. A Mahommedan may eat and drink the entire night if he can.

If her ladyship would go through a Ramazan, we can assure her she would find her fast turned into a feast. The whole agony of the Ramazan is centred in the prohibition of liquids, and that generally in a scorching climate that boils the very marrow in your bones.

As the subject of sanctuaries possesses some peculiar interest at the present moment, we shall extract some sensible remarks of our authoress on the point. She observes that though often an evil, they are on the whole a vast benefit. Where law is weak and administration corrupt, society requires some extraneous support independent of both. Foreign missions are inviolable asylums. The Shah's uncle took refuge in the Russian mission. It also appears that criminals often sought an asylum in the mission, and that to deliver them up would have brought bud namee-a bad reputation on the mission. They were therefore allowed to remain till night, and then told to depart and seek protection elsewhere. Princes, khans, military officers, might at times be seen taking refuge within the mission walls. The culpable were invited to withdraw without delay. The victims of tyranny were

allowed to remain until an opportunity occurred of making amicable arrangements. Such has been the established and recognised system of asylum in the English and Russian missions for half a century, and the reader will at once see how necessary it is to bear this prescriptive right in view, when considering the flagrant violation of the sanctity of the asylum which has caused the withdrawal of our minister from the Court of Tehran. Lady Sheil says that the Sedr azeem, or prime minister, is essentially Persian, and this doubtless is very true. The Russians have a tight hold on the pursestrings of Persia, and any little favourable arrangement respecting the debt owed is very desirable for them; but if that arrangement involves acts that compel our minister to withdraw from Tehran, it is obvious that Russian influence will rule supreme. Therefore, not only does our national honour require that reparation for the insult be full, but policy dictates that it should be speedy. Who will say that the interval already elapsed has not been taken advantage of by the Russians, and who can foresee what difficulties may thereby be engendered, affecting seriously the tribes bounding the north-western frontier of our Indian Empire.

a

Lady Sheil will forgive us- -like good wife when we say that the most valuable portion of her book is the Additional Notes' by her husband, wherein are discussed many interesting topics, such as Russian influence in the East, Russian protection, her naval strength in the Caspian-all but_useless except for aggression-Russian designs, the whole question of her invasion of India, and the precautions necessary; and also a detailed account of the Persian power and revenue. These subjects merit a separate paper and an abler pen, and we trust they may find both. We regret that our space. will not allow us to travel farther with Lady Sheil, and enjoy her trips to Ispahan, and her summer retirement to the hills, the latter not unaccompanied sometimes with danger, for the rains appear to come on with

fearful rapidity, and on one occasion, within a very few minutes, nearly swept their whole camp with a besom of destruction, rendering all efforts on their part as useless as Dame Partington's struggles with her broom against the Atlantic. We would recommend Lady Sheil, in a second edition, to emend her description of the bastinado, or to explain the anatomy of its victims, for she describes the feet of the culprits as being turned up to the sky when thrown on their backs; with a camel's anatomy this might answer; but with the ordinary race of men they would require what sailors term, 'to be canted over, and turned 'tother way up.'

We now take leave of our authoress and her pleasant volume, concluding with an extract which conveys both a warning and a tribute to the British press -3 warning not to injure their country's influence by hasty judgments on incomplete knowledge of facts—a tribute as proving their successful triumph in the cause of humanity.

A son of the maternal uncle of the Shah had for many months raised the standard of rebellion, and sustained a vigorous siege against his sovereign's forces. It terminated in his capture by treachery, which was succeeded by his execution, and that of one of his sons and two of his brothers. A few years ago a wholesale massacre would have followed this bold rebellion, but European influence and unceasing expostulation have softened Persian manners. is curious, though I believe true, that the English press has had some share in producing this change. The strictures on Persian misgovernment which sometimes appear in the English journals, are viewed with anger and alarm, particularly when the evildoers are held up by name to public reprobation.

It

In corroboration of this dread of the English Press-although showing an ignorance of its integrity— we may add that we know from the most unquestionable authority that the prime minister of Persia, since the rupture with the British mission, has sent agents to Bombay and Constantinople with money and decorations, to be supplied to those parties who warmly espoused the cause of Persia in the recent dispute.

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JUN

UNIPER, seduced by a vision of Ultima Thule, has at length paid me a visit. He was completely exhausted by the London season when he appeared, but he has picked up rapidly during the last few days. His conversation is at all times of a pleasing and instructive cast; and I look on myself as fortunate in having been requested by him, in the event of his demise preceding my own, to superintend his Biographical Remains. The Memoirs, strictly speaking, will be comprised in four volumes; and I believe that the Correspondence will not occupy beyond the same number-moderate, surely, in an age when every third-rate poet demands a dozen quartos before he will rest quietly in his grave. My notes of his conversation are already extensive; and with that considerateness which marks his character, he has latterly, like Dr. Johnson, adopted a didactic, not to say ponderous style, which greatly facilitates reporting.

We went out last night to the terrace which flows down in a series of wave-like ripples to the seamargin. We could hear the seaducks plunging and splashing in the bay, and the shrill cry of the curlew as they chased each other along the sand at our feet. Just as we emerged, a phantom-like bark, with its dark sails looming through the night, glided silently past on its way to some ghostly shore. It might be the Flying Dutchman; Juniper, indeed, with his usual assurance, asserted that it was; and we asked ourselves on what eerie errand it had been bound among our wild North Seas. No living creature was visible on the deck, but there was a light hanging somewhere among the masts-a pale damp yellow light, such as in moist Autumn evenings one sees about the white figures in the churchyard.

Patient and inexorable is the night,' quoth Juniper, addressing space in his intrepid way,-inexorable as destiny. There is no delay,-no pause to renew and upgather the energies which uphold

And yet the night itself is not silent. There are whispers among the starry spaces,-the rustling of wings high up in the ether, like the flight of night-birds to distant rivers, or of angels on the behest of the Master, the stir and quiver of the serried lances of the Aurora. Look into the sky, and listen! I don't understand,' he continued, after a pause, how the ancients, with their exquisite sense of the proprieties of the external world, could endow Diana with any mortal frailty. She love Endymion,-she kiss the beardless boy upon old Latmos. She is too coldly, too daintily divine. And yet perhaps some pale, silent, death-like passion may hide itself behind that passionless front, some passion that she shrouds from her own heart with more than maiden shame. You recollect how finely Fletcher has retraced the old Greek story in his resonant English lines:

Tell thee tales of love: How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes

She took eternal fire that never dies; How she conveyed him softly in a sleep, His temples bound with poppy, to the steep

Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night,

Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,

To kiss her sweetest.

'Strong old metres, and they rhyme well with the waves, do they not? Speaking of Fletcher, I often think if our old comrade, Lovell Beddoes, had lived, he would have done something really great in that line, a genuine English Drama. What a wonderful imagination that man had.'

'Yet I never knew a life more