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I shall not extend this Chapter (which has already exceeded my original purpose,) by a multiplicity of instances, illustrative of the different sorts of eloquence. Whether a minister be inclined, by the tendency of his constitution, or by the line of his studies, to the argumentative, didactic, colloquial, or pathetic style of preaching; whether he be formed to be Boanerges, i, e. a son of thunder, or a Barnabas, a son of consolation,' let him carefully consult his genius, and move within his proper orbit. It is not nature, but affectation, that makes men ridiculous, leading them to imitate others, while they neglect to improve their own natural endowments. Hence it is incumbent upon us to elicit, as far as we can, the latent qualities of the mind, and to give them an appropriate and useful direction."

pp. 283-288.

It appears that a minister of Christ should be as the pure voice of revelation to the people. He should be wise to win souls. This momentous end should so simplify and illustrate his motives of action, as clearly to demonstrate that his zeal is exercised not so much for the bulwarks that defend the Christian faith, as for the faith itself; -not so much for the mitre, as for the cross;—not so much for our ecclesiastical polity, as for the interests of the gospel. Whilst he distinguishes these subjects, he ought to hold them in conjunction, and display his sense of their relative importance in the spirituality of his conduct,-in a sublime independence of mind, which leads him to sacrifice whatever militates against the authority of God, and the moral welfare of his flock. In short, he should seek not theirs, but them,'-practically recognizing the excellent advice of St. Jerom, • Docente in ecclesia te, non clamor populi, sed gemitus suscitetur; lachrymæ auditorum laudes tuæ sunt. How beautifully was this sentiment exemplified in the ministry of Saint Augustine! While he acted as a presbyter of Hippo under Valerius his bishop, it is recorded, that he was appointed by him to preach to the people in or der to reclaim them from riotous feasting on solemn days. He opened the scriptures, and read them the most vehement rebukes. He besought them by the ignominy and sorrow, and by the blood of Christ, not to destroy themselves, to pity him who spake to them with so much affection, and to shew some regard to their venerable bishop, who, out of tenderness to them, had charged him to instruct them in the truth. I did not make them weep,' says he, by first weeping over them; but while I was preaching, their tears prevented mine. Then I own, I could not restrain myself. After we had wept together, I began to entertain great hope of their amendment. On another occasion this eminent father observes: We must not imagine that a man has spoken powerfully, when he receives much applause. This is sometimes given to low turns of wit, and merely ornamental eloquence. But the sublime overwhelms the mind with its vebemence; it strikes them dumb; it melts them into tears. When I endeavoured to persuade the people of Cæsarea to abolish their barbarous sports, in which, at a certain time of the year, they fought publicly for several days, I said what I could, but while I heard only

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their acclamations, I thought I had done nothing; but when they wept, I had hope that the horrible custom, which they had received from their ancestors, would be abolished. It is upwards of eight years since that time, and by the grace of God they have ever since been restrained from the practice. Here is indeed an affecting display of genuine oratory. pp. 293–295.

If the whole volume had been in accordance with these passages, our task would have been a most agreeable one; and we will not add a word that might lessen the favourable impression they are adapted to leave on the minds of our readers.

Art. II. Memoirs of Zehir-ed-din Muhammed Baber, Emperor of Hindustan; written by Himself in the Jaghatai Turki, and translated partly by the late John Leyden, Esq, M.D., partly by William Erskine, Esq. With Notes and a Geographical and Historical Introduction. 4to. pp. 509. London, 1826.

THERE has been, until of late years, a very inconvenient

want of precision about the geography of Central Asia, involving in its uncertainty much of the historical detail connected with that extensive and important region. Tracts, whence have issued armed and organized hosts, before whose desperate and multitudinous charge the chivalry of Europe were unable to stand, have hitherto been known to us only by name; and the journeyings of ancient travellers have baffled all attempts to trace their course in consistency with ascertained circumstances. One of our most useful guides was Herbelot, but his information seldom gave us satisfaction in these matters. His learned, but confused and imperfect compilation displays little of that discriminative faculty which extracts from scattered and discordant materials, the elements of clear and consecutive statement. Modern investigators have done much to remove the difficulties connected with these inquiries, and information has been collected from every available source, so effectually as to enable an attentive student to combine occurrences with localities in a sufficiently clear and satisfactory way. The collections of the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, as embodied in the map and memoir appended to his Afghan mission, gave a new aspect to the geography of interior Asia; and Mr. Erskine, with the aid of Mr. Waddington, an engineer officer in the service of the East India Company, has made a further and most important advance towards its definitive arrangement. Ferghana and its surrounding districts are laid down with sufficient certainty for general purposes; and, although much remains to be ascertained towards the east

and north-east, as well as in completion of the blanks left in the map before us, yet enough has been done to give distinctness to many portions of history which were before confused for want of a similar elucidation. With respect to the country round Bokhara, greater accuracy might have been obtained by consulting the work of Meyendorff, lately reviewed by us.

The highly interesting Memoirs' before us presented a favourable opportunity for investigations of this kind. The singular vicissitudes of Baber's life, led him, by turns chieftain, exile, freebooter, dependent, emperor, over various and extensive ranges of country, of which his descriptions are frequently minute and important. Much, however, was to be done before the knowledge thus communicated could be rendered specifically available. It was necessary to collect and to compare details of all kinds; to question the native traveller ; to accumulate statistical illustrations as well as itineraries of every description; and from these materials, commonly vague, and sometimes discordant, to frame a system that should accord with the narrative of Baber, and with the general course of history. Of information obtained in this way, Mr. Elphinstone possesses an abundant stock; and he may be considered as the main, if not the sole authority for the extensive geographical illustrations supplied in the introductory portion of the present work. These relate principally to Ferghana, Bokhara, and Badakshan, though they comprise incidentally a much larger extent of country, and it seems greatly to be regretted that, with such copious materials at command, the map was not constructed on a more comprehensive scale. It would have been imperfect, no. doubt, but it would have made a nearer approximation to correctness than the charts we are now compelled to trust; and it would have furnished a surer basis for successive improvements.

Baber is one among the many illustrious names which the historian of the East delights to commemorate, and with a better title to celebrity than either of the more noted conquerors, Jenghiz Khan or Tamerlane, from both of whom he was lineally descended. He was of Tartar race, and appears to have been an able and intrepid commander, liberal to his friends, and, on the whole, forbearing towards his enemies. He was an accomplished person; a poet, a man of taste and reading, delighting in literature and the arts, and encouraging them both, not only by questionable example and empty commendation, but by efficient patronage. His vices, gross and disgusting, admit only of the palliation, that they were not deemed infamous among his countrymen. He was an ostentatious drunkard; and it excites unutterable loathing to find

him describing his passion for a youth of his own sex, in the same glowing terms that are usually employed in expressing the feelings of legitimate affection. The authenticity of his Memoirs is beyond all question. They were carefully preserved by his descendants, and translated, at the desire of the 'illustrious Akber, into the Persian language, from the original Turki, by Mirza Abdal-Rahim. We hazard something in describing them as uncommonly interesting, for they require more attention than readers in general are disposed to give, and a slight inspection may present somewhat of a sterile and forbidding aspect; but those who may feel inclined to trace the progress of a Tartar chief through nearly all the possible vicissitudes of fortune, will find in the present volume a singularly instructive narrative, enriched with much valuable illustration of character and manners, combined with a graphic exhibition of movements and enterprises, that, to us at least, gives a very powerful interest to the work. It is not often that we gain access to the true motives and springs of action, still less to the first impulses that give origin to great and influential transactions; but we seem, in the present instance, to be fairly admitted behind the scenes, and to witness the whole system of intrigue and action, in the rehearsal as well as in the dressed performance. A more explanatory comment on Eastern history can hardly be desired. The restlessness, the capricious versatility, the selfishness, the ambition, and the complete absence of good faith that distinguish the characters. and communications of public men in Asia-European statesmen are happily exempt from all such failures in moral and political integrity-are here nakedly set forth. Baber himself, for a Tartar, was an honourable person, and, bating the gross indulgencies to which the manners of the time gave licence, must have been a very pleasant companion and an excellent master. Mr. Erskine sums up his character in the following

terms.

Zahir-ed-din Muhammed Baber was undoubtedly one of the most illustrious men of his age, and one of the most eminent and accom◄ plished princes that ever adorned an Asiatic throne. He is represented as having been above the middle size, of great vigour of body, fond of all field and warlike sports, an excellent swordsman, and a skilful archer. As a proof of his bodily strength, it is mentioned, that he used to leap from one pinnacle to another of the pinnated ramparts used in the East, in his double-soled boots; and that he even frequently took a man under each arm, and went leaping along the rampart from one of the pointed pinnacles to another. Having been early trained to the conduct of business, and tutored in the school of adversity, the powers of his mind received their full development. He

ascended the throne at the age of twelve; and before he had attained his twentieth year, the young prince had shared every variety of fortune: he had not only been the ruler of subject provinces, but had been in thraldom to his own ambitious nobles, and obliged to conceal every sentiment of his heart; he had been alternately hailed and obeyed as a conqueror and deliverer by rich and extensive kingdoms, and forced to lurk in the deserts and mountains of his own native kingdom as a houseless wanderer. Down to the last dregs of life, we perceive in him the strong feelings of an affection for his early friends and early enjoyments, rarely seen among princes. Perhaps the free manners of the Tûrki tribes had combined with the events of his early life, in cherishing these amiable feelings. He had betimes been taught, by the voice of events that could not lie, that he was a man dependent on the kindness and fidelity of other men; and, in his dangers and escapes with his followers, had learned that he was only one of an association, whose general safety and success depended on the result of their mutual exertions in a common cause. The native benevolence and gayety of his disposition seems ever to overflow on all around him; and he talks of his mothers, his grandmothers, and sisters with some garrulity indeed, but the garrulity of a good son and a good brother. Of his companions in arms, he always speaks with the frank gayety of a soldier; and it is a relief to the reader, in the midst of the pompous coldness of Asiatic history, to find a king who can weep for days, and tell us that he wept, for the playmate of his boyhood. Indeed, an uncommon portion of good nature and good humour runs through all his character; and, even to political offences, he will be found, in a remarkable degree, indulgent and forgiving.'

Baber (the Tiger) was born in 1483, and ascended the throne in 1494. The times in which he lived, were those of Columbus and de Gama, of Francis I., of Leo and Luther. He was a Tartar of mixed race, Tûrki by the father's side, Moghul by maternal descent, though he always considered himself as a Tûrk, and wrote his memoirs in the Jaghatai dialect of the Tûrki language. He was king of Ferghana, the modern Kokan, which Mr. Erskine designates, not, we are inclined to think, with his usual accuracy, as a powerful kingdom.' It can scarcely be, we should imagine, but that the constant wars and broils in which these regions have been involved, must have exhausted the population in every way; and it does not appear, either from the extent of its territory or from the existing state of its military institutions, that Kokan is, for the present, likely to assume a forcible supremacy over its neighbours. In fact, it should seem, that there has never been much foundation for the imputed populousness of the Tartar countries. The conquests even of Jenghiz Khan were progressive. His armies, at first, were of slender force; and it was not until he had recruited them by levies from the conquered tribes, and by the accession

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