Townshend has, however, the undisputed honour of first giving his name to the pub lick as an active promoter of this Institu tion. Posterity will do him justice: he still lives its active and energetic pleader. He was joined, at the outset, by his friend, the late Rev. Henry Cox Mason, who died rector of Bermondsey, [Feb. 3. 1804,] Mr. Mason's heart and soul were in the undertaking from the first; but his attachment to it seemed to increase, as he saw more and more of the advantages it conferred, and the increasing numbers that applied for admission to participate in these advantages. The energies of his mind, and the exertions of his body, were devoted to the augmentation of the list of its supporters, till within a few weeks of his death; and to his memory much is due by every wellwisher to the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb." [See our vol. LXXIV. p. 187,] We cannot too heartily commend the benevolence and the uncommon ingenuity of this useful work; the Plates of which are so simple, and yet so accurate, that they may be very beneficially recommended as a valuable present to children in general, as well as to those for whom they are so judiciously and peculiarly adapted.

67. Travels in various Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. By Edward Daniel Clarke, LL. D. Part the First. Russia, Tartary, and Turkey. Cadell and Davies; 4to; pp. 759.

AFTER the censure passed on this handsome and elaborate Volume by Sir Robert Wilson (see our last, p. 563); we deem it fair (recollecting the good old maxim, Audi alterum partem) to give Dr. Clarke an opportunity of unfolding his plan, and relating his own story:

"of

"Under circumstances," he says, peculiar anxiety, the Author presents the First Part of his Travels to the Publick.

A sense of unearned praise already bestowed by too eager anticipation weighs heavy on his mind; and some degree of apprehension attaches to the consciousness of having obeyed a strong impulse of duty in the unfavourable representation made of the state of society in Russia. The moral picture afforded of its inhabitants may seem distorted by spleen, and traced under other impressions than those of general charity and Christian benevolence: on which account, the reader is doubly entreated to pardon defects, which experience, chastened by criticism, may subsequently amend; and to suspend the judgment, which more general acquaintance with the Author may ultimately mitigate. The present publication is not the only one on which he will have to form

an opinion. It is merely an introduction to his future potice. The plan under contemplation is, to complete, in Three sepa-> rate Parts, a series of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, so that each portion, consisting of one or more volumes, may constitute a survey of some particular region, Thus, for example, the work now published relates to Travels in Russia, Tartary, and Turkey; a second may include the observations collected in Greece, Syria, and Egypt; and finally, a third, those which presented themselves in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Lapland, and Finland. But, in order to accomplish so extensive an undertaking, some indul-' gence is required to the manner of its execution; some credit for better disposition" towards his fellow-creatures, than the Author's severe penance in Russia may seem to have excited. It is not so generally known, as it may be, that the passage of countries of Sweden and Russia, the mere a small rivulet, which separates the two crossing of a bridge, conducts the traveller from all that adorns and dignifies the human mind, to whatsoever, most abject has been found to degrade it. If the late Empress and Autocrat of all the Russias, Catherine the Second, could find a Volney, who would prostitute his venal pen to varnish the deformities of her reign and of her empire; if Potemkin did not want an apologist, and an advocate, even among the writers of this country; Great Britain' will forgive the frankness of one among her sons, who has ventured, although harshly, to speak the truth. It is a lau- · guage not wholly obscured in the more cautious descriptions of former writers. Tubervile, of England, Augustine, of Germany, Olearius, of Denmark, and, more recently, the Abbé de la Chappe, of France, together with the authors of many anonymous productions, represent the real character of the people, in colours, which neither the antidote of Alexis Mussin Pushkin, the drivellings of Voltaire, nor all the hired deceptions of French philosophers and savans, have been able to wipe away."

By a List subjoined of the places visited in this Tour, with their distance from each other, it appears that Dr. Clarke's Route from Petersburg to Constantinople extended to a distance of 4093 miles and a half. The Journey was begun on the third of April, 1800; and the Traveller en tered the Canal of Constantinople on the 22d of November.

Our learned and ingenious Author had long "cast an eye of wishful curiosity towards the Eastern boundary of Europe; the knowledge of whose inhabitants, both among the antients and moderns, has scarcely exceeded

the

cer had a different notion of the mode of observing these regulations, they were constantly liable to be interrupted in the streets and public places, and treated with impertinence. The dress consisted of a cocked hat, or, for want of one, a round hat pinned up with three corners; a long cue; a single-breasted coat and waistcoat; knee-buckles instead of strings; and buckles in the shoes. Orders were given to arrest any person seen in pantaloons. A servant was taken out of his sledge, and caned in the streets, for having too thick a neckcloth; and if it had been too thin, he would have met a similar punishment. After every precaution, the dress, when put on, never satisfied; either the hat was not straight on the head, the hair too short, or the coat was not cut square enough. A lady at court wore her hair rather lower in her, neck than was consistent with the decree; and she was ordered into close confinement, to be fed on bread and water. A gentleman's hair fell a little over his forehead, while dancing at a ball: a police-officer attacked him with rudeness and with abuse; and told him, if he did not instantly cut his hair, he wouldfind a soldierwho could shave his head.

When the ukase first appeared concerning the form of the hat, the son of an English merchant, with a view to baffle the police, appeared in the streets of Petersburg, having on his head an English hunting-cap, at sight of which the policeofficers were puzzled. It was not a cocked hat,' they said; neither 'was it a round hat.' In this embarrassment, they reported the affair to the Emperor. An ukase was accordingly promulgated, and levelled at the hunting-cap; but, not knowing how to describe the anomaly, the Emperor ordained, that no person should appear in public with the thing on his head worn by the merchant's son.'. An order against wearing boots with coloured tops was most rigorously enforced. The police officers stopped a gentleman driving through the streets in a pair of English boots. The gentleman expostulated, saying that he had no others with him, and certainly would not cut off the tops off his boots; upon which the officers, each seizing a leg as he sat in his droske, fell to work and drew off his boots, leaving him to go barefooted home.-If Englishmen ventured to notice any of these enormities in their letters, which were all opened and read by the police, or expressed themselves with energy in praise of their own country, or used a single sentiment or expression offensive or incomprehensible to the police-officers or their spies, they were liable to be torn in an instant, without any previous notice, from their families and friends, thrown into a sledge, and hurried off to the frontier, or to Siberia, Many

persons were said to have been privately murdered, and more were banished. Never was there a system of administration more offensive in the eyes of God or man. A veteran officer, who had served fifty years in the Russian army, and attained the rank of colonel, was broken without the smallest reason. Above an hundred officers met with their discharge, all of whom were ruined; and many others were condemned to suffer imprisonment or severer punishment. The cause of all this was said to be the Emperor's ill-humour; and when the cause of that ill-humour became known, it appeared that his mistress, who detested him, had solicited permission to marry an officer to whom she was betrothed.-To such excessive cruelty did his rage carry him against the author of an epigram, in which his reign had been contrasted with his mother's, that he ordered his tongue to be cut out; and sent him to one of those remote islands, in the Aboutan tract, on the North-west coast of America, which are inhabited by savages.

"Viewing the career of such men, who, like a whirlwind, mark their progress through the ages in which they live by a track of desolation, can we wonder at the stories we read of Regicides? There is something,' says Mr. Park, 'in the frown of a Tyrant, which rouses the most inward emotions of the soul.' In the prospect of dismay, of calamity, and of sorrow, mankind might experience in the reign of Paul, I felt an inward, and, as the event has proved, a true presentiment of his approaching death: and I will freely confess, much as I abhor the manner of it, that it was

a consummation Devoutly to be wished'."

"To the kindness of Lord Whitworth, while Ambassador at Petersburg," says Dr. Clarke, "the very existence of the present Volume may be ascribed; and his character ought to stand recorded, in having afforded, as an English minister, the very rare example of liberal patronage to his travelling countrymen, during the whole of his embassy."

In the course of his Tour, Dr. Clarke takes occasion to observe that

"The etiquette of precedency, so rigorously observed at a Russian table, prevails also in the order of the dishes and bottles arranged for the guests. In barbarous times we had something like it in England. Perhaps the custom is not even now quite extinct in Wales; it is preserved in large farm-houses in remote parts of England, where all the family, from the master to the lowest inenial, sit down to the same table. The choicest dishes are carefully placed at the upper end, and are hauded to those guests whe

sit near the owner of the mansion, according to the order in which they sit; afterwards, if any thing remains, it is taken gradually to the rest. Thus a degree in precedency makes all the difference between something and nothing to eat; for persons at the bottom of the table are often compelled to rest satisfied with an empty dish. It is the same with regard to the wines: the best are placed near the top of the table; but, in proportion as the guests are removed from the post of honour, the wine before them diminishes in quality, until at last it degenerates into simple quas. Few things can offer more repugnance to the feelings of an Englishman, than the example of a wealthy glutton, pouring forth eulogium upon the choice wines he has placed before a stranger merely out of ostentation, while a number of brave officers and dependants are sitting by him, to whom he is unable to offer a single glass. I sometimes essayed a violation of this barbarous custom, by taking the bottle placed before me, and filling the glasses of those below; but the offer was generally refused, through fear of giving offence by acceptance, and it was a mode of conduct which I found could not be tolerated even by the most liberal host. At a Russian table two tureens of soup usually make their appearance, as we often see them in England; but, if a stranger should ask for that which is placed at the bottom of the table, the master of the house regards him with dismay, the rest all gaze at him with wonder, and, when he tastes what he has obtained, he finds it to be a mess of dirty, abominable broth, stationed for those who never venture to ask for soup from the upper end

of the table.-A droll accident befell two English gentlemen of considerable property, who were travelling for amusement in Russia. They were at Nicholaef; and, being invited by the Chief Admiral to dinner, they were placed as usual at the head of the table; where they were addressed by the well-known title of Milords Anglois. Tired of this ill-placed distinction, they assured the Admiral they were not lords. Then pray,' said the host, what rank do you possess? The lowest Russian admitted to the Admiral's table possesses a certain degree of rank; all who are in the service of the Crown are noble by their profession, and they cannot comprehend the title of a mere gentleman, without some specific title annexed. The Englishmen replied, however, that they had no other rank than that of English gentlemen. But your titles? You must have some title!" No, said they, we have no title but that of English gentlemen. A general silence and many sagacious looks followed this last declaration. On the following day they presented themselves again at the

.

hour of dinner, and were taking their station as before. To their surprise they found that each person present, one after the other, placed himself above them. One was a general; another a lieutenant; a third an ensign; a fourth a police-officer; a fifth an army-surgeon; a sixth a secretary; and so on. All this was very well; they consoled themselves with the prospect of a snug party at the bottom of the table, where they would be the farther removed from ceremony; but, lo! when the dishes came round, a first was empty; a second contained the sauce without the meat; a third the rejected offals of the whole company; and at length they were compelled to make a scanty meal upon the slice of black bread before them, and a little dirty broth from the humble tureen, behind whose compassionate veil they were happy to hide their confusion; at the same time being more amused than mortified at an adventure into which they now saw they brought themselves by their unassuming fraukness. Had either of them said, as was really the case, that they were in the service of his Britannic Majesty's Militia, or Members of the Associated Volunteers of London, they would never have encountered so unfavourable a reception."

The Volume is ornamented and il

lustrated by Fifty Plates and Charts, many of them very pleasing; amongst which is a good Portrait of the Author. There are also Thirty-two Vignettes, most of which are extremely delicate.

The profile of the Emperor Paul is strikingly characteristic; and those of a Russian and a Greek form an admirable contrast.

friend of Dr. Clarke, and “the cause John Martin Cripps, M. A. the and companion of his travels," is mentioned with affectionate respect.

"To his unceasing ardour in prosecuting every enterprise, were added a mildness and suavity of manners, which endeared him to the inhabitants of every country he visited. The constancy and firmness he preserved through all the trials and privations of a long and arduous journey, as well as the support he rendered to the Author in hours of painful and dangerous sickness, demand the warmest expressions of gratitude. The Plants collected during the Route were the result of their mutual labour; but the whole of the Meteorological statements in the Appendix, together with the account given of relays and distances, are due to his patient observation and industry."

"To the Rev. Reginald Heber, of Brazen Nose College, the Author is indebted

for