228 



Monthly Review of' Literature, 



[AuG. 



who he was. Something like ambition had 

 been generated, for the ill-judging father, 

 who saw him once a year, always bade him 

 behave weD, and he would make a gentle- 

 man of him. The time came at last when 

 something must be done towards a perma- 

 nent settlement his own wish was for a 

 commission in the army, but he was finally 

 despatched to the West Indies, to learn the 

 art and mystery of planting. There, by 

 some mismanagement, or rather the neglect 

 of adequate arrangements, he found himself 

 left to his own resources, and glad to accept 

 of employment as overseer. Disgusted at 

 this occupation, he returned to Scotland, 

 where he was roughly received by his father, 

 and quickly shipped off, in the steerage, for 

 Canada, as a book-keeper. On board, how- 

 ever, the captain bf course he had received 

 no competent payment for the passage 

 treated him very harshly, and he escaped 

 from the ship when off the Irish coast, where 

 he enlisted in the artillery service, and was 

 forthwith sent to Ceylon. At Ceylon he 

 was stationed some years always the vic- 

 tim of jealousy never getting on ; regarded 

 by the men as a ' dictionary man,' envied 

 for his acquirements by the non-commis- 

 sioned officers, much of whose work he per- 

 formed, and misrepresented by them to their 

 superiors. At the peace of 1814, he was 

 discharged on a pension of nine-pence a 

 day. Quite abandoned by his father, he 

 now made his way again to the West-Indies, 

 and after two or three attempts at employ- 

 ment, proceeded to Venezuela ; and entering 

 into the Colombian service, obtained a lieu- 

 tenant's commission, partly by falsely repre- 

 senting himself as an officer. This again, 

 and in the common course of things, was a 

 subject of annoyance ; for he was always in 

 fear of being discovered, and more than once 

 was actually recognised. In this precious 

 Colombian service, he could get no pay 

 nor always his rations, and was finally 

 cheated out of some prize-money. Return- 

 ing to Scotland once more, pennyless save 

 some arrears of his pension his father again 

 refused to do any thing for him, and even, 

 being exasperated by his son's importunity, 

 took out what in Scotland is called a law- 

 burrows, and had him thrown into prison, 

 till apparently, in a" few months, for very 

 shame, he was forced to release him. The 

 wretched narrator concludes with a wish to 

 leave the country in which he was born, 

 and has suffered most, and to terminate a 

 life in which he has suffered much, and en- 

 joyed little, in a foreign land. The parent 

 is apparently still living if all is true, the 

 exposure is fairly justifiable. The son vio- 

 lates no law of propriety towards a father 

 who has himself observed none. But inde- 

 pendently of the personal circumstances, 

 the scenes described have many of them a 

 great deal of novelty and interest especi- 

 ally some of the West India sketches those 

 of Ceylon, and the campaigns of Colombia, 

 and the details of the life of a soldier in the 



ranks. " He is a man," says Mr. Howell, 

 " after my own heart ; he will not sacrifice 

 one iota of truth to give effect to an incident. 

 The only difficulty I have had, was in sof- 

 tening down the circumstances of his family 

 concerns. I refused to go on with his life 

 if he persisted in publishing all he had writ- 

 ten down. I would not have given what is 

 published, had I not thought it necessary 

 to illustrate the effects that early education 

 produces upon the after man, and at the 

 same time to account for his bad success in 

 life." 



The Armenians, by C. Macfarlane, Esq. 

 3 vols, 12 wo. Next to Anastatius, we know 

 no volumes better calculated to familiarize 

 us with oriental manners, and especially 

 those of Constantinople, and the beautiful 

 shores of the Bosphorus. Among the rajah 

 subjects of the Porte,' Armenians are as 

 distinct as Greeks and Jews. They are 

 wholly a plodding race men-camels, as 

 their tyrants call them^-their purpose in 

 residing among the Turks is gain, and they 

 exercise most of the mechanical professions 

 in Constantinople : they are also the general 

 bone-setters of the country ; but commercial 

 pursuits seem most congenial, and of late 

 years they have superseded the Jews as 

 bankers or seraffs, and made themselves 

 useful in the financial transactions of the 

 government. As to any thing like social 

 intercourse, they are entirely detached from 

 the Turks, while adopting many of their 

 habits ; and from the Greeks they are sepa- 

 rated not only by national prejudices, but 

 by difference of tenets in the profession of 

 the same religion. From their first conver- 

 sion to Christianity, they have been disciples 

 of Eutyches, denying the human nature of 

 Christ, and thus opposed to both the Greek 

 church and the Roman ; but among them, 

 for a considerable time, the Catholic mis- 

 sions have made proselytes, and the greater 

 part of the Armenians of Constantinople 

 are distinguished from the rest of their 

 countrymen as Catholics. To develope the 

 manners of this singular people, and con- 

 trast their peculiarities from those of the 

 Greeks, the author selects a Greek for the 

 hero of his story, and an Armenian for his 

 heroine the general outline rests on facts. 

 The hero is a Greek prince of the Fanara, 

 and son of the Hospodar of Wallachia, re- 

 cently appointed to that slippery dignity, 

 and himself residing at Constantinople, as 

 his father's hostage to the Porte, under the 

 official character of political agent. He is 

 a fine handsome young fellow, with money 

 at command, and a turn for intrigue. 

 While paying a visit to his grandmamma, 

 at a village on the Bosphorus, he meets 

 with a young lady, with whose charms he 

 is deeply struck at the first glance, and be- 

 fore he departs is desperately in love the 

 impression proves equally decisive on the 

 part of the lady. Unluckily she is an Ar- 

 menian, the daughter of a wealthy banker ; 



