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and let the Egean as well as the Ionian sea view only the British colours. The Greeks are impoverished; the Turks have something; is there nothing to be gained by fighting for Mohammed rather than for Christ? Do such shameful calculations appear wholly foreign to the enlightened period in which we live ?'

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From such declamatory passages, a sufficient idea may be formed of the favourite style of this writer, which is continually aiming at elegance, but is often deficient in precision. We meet with another anti-Anglican diatribe at p. 250. England and Turkey make war before they declare it. The English seize at sea on vessels sailing under the faith of treaties; and the Turks imprison in the Seven Towers the ambassadors of Christian princes; while Corsairs at all times attack Christian navigators, and reduce their crews to slavery.' This bad custom of the British government, to begin war practically before it had been declared, exposed to a long imprisonment all the English travellers who were scattered over France during the late contest. We should deeply lament if M. Jouy, or any other writer, foreign or domestic, could justifiably assert that the motive for such violation, on our part, of the law of nations, may be found in the circumstance that all captures made at sea previously to a declaration of war become the property of the crown, a droit of Admiralty;" and that the royal family is not eager to correct an abuse by which it profits.

Volume II. is divided into nine books: on the Application of Morality to interior Policy; on Morality in general; (this section is strangely out of place ;) on Morality in Tribunals and Magistracies; on Morality in Public Institutions and Establishments; on Morality in Taxation and in Public Expenditure; on Morality in Literature, Philosophy, and Political Eloquence; on Morality in Education, and in Public Instruction; Moral Relations of the different Classes of Society; the Influence of Women on the Manners and Happiness of Nations. A good chapter is the fourth, which treats of the style of legislation, and points out the importance of clearness and precision in wording the laws. nation is more negligent than the British in the expression of its public regulations: an Act of Parliament being usually drawn up with a slovenly technicality, which seems to aim at rendering its provisions disputable, and its protection unsafe.

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At p. 69. the author asserts that legal torture yet exists in England; supposing, probably, that the old punishment for standing mute still subsists: but we believe that it was abolished in the twelfth year of the late king. We translate chap. 21. of book ix.

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(Vol. ii. p. 95.) I dwelt for some years in the island of Ceylon, "Où dom Calmet, réveur benedictin

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Met le berceau du triste genre humain.” ·

I am not sure that this island was the antient Taprobana, and still less that it was the seat of Paradise: but I know that it is inhabited by three distinct classes of men, in whom more fully than elsewhere three different degrees of civilization may be observed: the Europeans established on the coast, the Cingalees, who have become masters of the interior by conquest, and the Bedas, who appear to have been the aboriginal inhabitants. These last have retired, in the neighbourhood of Trincomale, to an inaccessible fastness of mountains and forests; where they live independent of every yoke, without laws, without chieftains, with)" out religion, in a word, with no other social tie than that innate sentiment of justice which suffices for their preservation.

A journey which I undertook into the interior of Ceylon brought me into the district inhabited by the Bedas. One morning, on quitting my tent, I found a zagay (a missile spear) stuck at my door, to which were hung various sorts of game. My Cingalese servant, when I asked to whom I was indebted for this present, pointed out, all in a tremble, the footsteps of a party of Bedas, who had come during the night to my dwelling, and wanted to take away in exchange for the game certain iron implements which they had seen in my possession, and which formed the only sort of property that they coveted. They will come again, he added, to-morrow. night; and if they do not find where they left the game those instruments for which they have thus applied, they will most likely set fire to the house, and kill us both.

However irregular I thought this system of barter was, yet, under all the circumstances of the case, I considered it as better to bend to necessity, and determined to part with an old sabre which I could spare, and to hang it upon the zagay. The people came at night, in greater numbers than before; and, when they found that their principal wish was granted, they began to dance round me, and to express the highest transports of joy. My gratitude for their hospitable care had apparently passed their expectation, and I found them so well affected to me, that I applied to them for guides to conduct me about the mountainous district which they inhabited: to which circumstance I owe the advantage of having penetrated into a part of Ceylon that, I think, no European had ever before visited.

Now, who does not perceive, in the conduct of these savages, an instinctive tendency towards that natural justice which I place among the innate virtues? Does it not prove that these rude creatures reason thus: Men owe to each other mutual help: he who has property is debtor to him who has not: you have iron, which I want, says the savage to the civilized man, and I have provisions, which you want; let us barter: but, if you refuse to share your superfluities with me, when I let you partake of mine, you are an unjust man, and I become intitled to seize by force that which I would fain owe merely to your justice.' Kk

APP. REV. VOL. XCIX.

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Chap. i. of the thirteenth book merits distinction: it treats of the moral effects of the printing press, and recommends to governments a greater tolerance of its boldness. Seditious language cannot easily bring into disrepute or contempt a "well-conducted administration; and, if men of talent manage the public affairs with a view to the public good, they will always be able to explain satisfactorily both their motives and their forms of proceeding. Intolerance usually results from conscious incapacity, or conscious profligacy; and, as time soon evaporates the pungency and obliterates the recollection of satire, to punish it is only to refresh the irritation and preserve the impression,

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In the sixteenth book, the author contends, on strong grounds, that democratic institutions are favorable to the epuration of manners; and that, where all the situations of authority are elective, from the magistrate and priest to the peer and the prince, a severer regard to purity of domestic character will necessarily overspread all the aspiring classes, which are the exemplary classes, and consequently will be diffused over the whole community.

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In every age, the sceptre of thought is seized by some superior intellect. Descartes, Corkeille, Voltaire, were successively the ruling minds of France. To whom does this glorious empire now belong? I hardly dare to pronounce between so many competitors of nearly equal merit; yet, were I compelled to make a choice, I do not hesitate to say I should name a woman. Madame de Stael, whose recent loss we deplore, seems to : me to have been, par excellence, the genius of the century. I am ..not blind to her errors, or to the paradoxy of some of her opinions in morals, politics, and literature: but I think that no French writer of our time has left traces so luminous and so profound.' (P. 377.)

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An Appendix of illustrative notes is attached to each volume. The whole work deserves to be read, and rifled: but perhaps not to be translated entire.

ART. VII. Le Coran, &c.; i. e. The Koran, and an Exposition of Mussulman Faith: translated from the Turkish of Mohammed Ben Pir-Ali Elberkevi, with Notes, by M. GARCIN DE TASSY, &c. &c. 8vo. S Vols. Paris Imported by Treuttel 3 and Co.

THE Mohammedan religion still perhaps prevails over a larger portion of the globe than any other half of Asia, almost all Africa, and a fine part of Europe, recognizing the doctrines of the Koran. Its ascendancy, however, is on

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the decline; in Spain, and in Hindostan, the governing classes o are no longer disciples of Islamism; and a sort of liberalism, akin to the philosophy of southern Europe, is gaining ground in Persia, and preparing a spirit of tolerance there which has hitherto been wanting in rulers of this persuasion. Still, the sacred books of these Orientals will leave lasting traces in the opinions of all the countries in which they have been received, even if the sovereignty should pass into infidel hands; and therefore it behoves both the philosopher and the statesman to study them with impartiality, in order that the one may know what to remedy, and the other what to indulge. As the British empire includes many districts in which Mohammedism was formerly professed by the prince, and is likely to comprehend more, the administrating class is bound thoroughly to understand that system of belief, and may then perhaps devise the means of amalgamating it with some analogous extant sect.

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The Koran has long circulated in various languages. Father Maracci printed in 1698 at Padua a Latin translation of the Arabic text, to which he appended useless refutations of the doctrine of the Prophet: his version passes for exact, but imitates too auxiously the Arabic idiom to be easily understood. Sale published at London, in 1734, a still more learned and more elegant interpretation, which has not hitherLeto been surpassed. The French have a translation of the Koran by Du Ryer, which was printed by the Elzevirs in 011649, but which is neither complete nor trustworthy. It was therefore not superfluous in M. GARCIN DE TASSY to undertake to superintend a new one. Some false opinions, he observes, are entertained of the Mohammedans in Europe, which he aspires to remove, by laying before his readers a Translation of the entire Koran, an Exposition of the Moslem Faith, a Version of the Pend-nameh of Saadi, :the Borda,pa Poem in Praise of the Prophet, and some Oriental Apologues characteristic of the Practical Morality of Eastern Nations. To the Koran is allotted two entire volumes, and the other illustrative pieces fill the third. To these documoments, which are closely translated from the Arabic, Turkish, -and Persian originals, are attached various explanatory notes, which form a learned and instructive commentary.i

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a one and two of this publication being occupied

by the Koran, of which the contents are well known here 2 through the excellent translation of Sale, and the introductory gidissertations which accompany his book, we shall prefer to adwell on the third volume; which is intitled an Appendix to nothe Koran, and begins with Risalei Berkevi. This is in fact a Kk 2

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catechism

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catechism for the use of Turks, the title of which may be rendered the Treatise of Berkevi; which has repeatedly been printed at Scutari, and which called forth a commentary in 352 pages from Cadi Zade Islambouli Ahmed ben Mohammed Amin. Berkevi, in this treatise, disserts extensively on points of doctrine, to which he allots the first six chapters of his work: but not so extensively on the ritual of worship, concerning which the translator supplies in his notes many directions, having abridged in this way a tedious and minute portion of the author's text

of The Arabians have a catechism called Birghilu risale, which has been translated into German under the designation Elementarbuch der Muhammedanischen Glanbenslehren, i. e. Elements of Mohammedan Doctrine; consisting of fifty-eight articles, which, with the commentary of Sad-Uddin Teftazani, answers the same purpose as this work of Berkevi.

We translate the second chapter concerning angels.

Secondly, it must be confessed and acknowleged that God has created angels, who act by his order, and who are not rebellious to his will, as many men are; and that they neither eat nor drink, nor are given in marriage. Among them are to be distinguished those who have access to the throne of God, and who are his messengers. Each of them has a peculiar office: 'some on earth, some in heaven, some upright, some kneeling; these lying prostrate while those sing the praises of God. Others have the charge of mankind, and record their actions; they are called guardian angels, and kind penmen.

Some angels are endued with a lofty stature, and with great strength, like Gabriel, to whom be peace: in one hour, he descends from heaven to earth, and with the flapping of his wings can remove mountains: he is the minister of heavenly vengeance. gif Azrael, on whom be peace, has to receive the souls of men at their last moments, and he will receive the souls of all men.

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Israfil, on whom be peace, is to sound the trumpet, which he always holds in his hand ready to blow when the command of God shall be given; and when that command is given, the sound thereof shall be heard through all heavens and all earths. Twice shall he sound it. At the first time, all the living shall die, which is the beginning of the last day, and the world shall remain forty years in this state of death. Afterward, the most high God shall raise up Israfil from death, who shall sound the trumpet a second time, and all the dead shall arise.' (P. 8.) brad

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To this chapter the translator attaches the following three notes: -All the Moslem doctors agree with the Koran, xxxvii. 150., that angels are of no sex: it is a mistake to charge the Mohammedans with making them female.

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