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HAJJI BAB .\ IX ENGLAND.* 



Mr. Morier'a first three volumes of the Adventures of Hajji Baba, 

 were rather roughly treated. For the sins of the author, some officious 

 friend (for we fully acquit Mr. M., himself, from having had any share 

 in the jest) circulated a report, a month before the book appeared, that 

 it was a new novel " by the author of Anastasius." And an edition was 

 actually printed in France, some time after the English publication, 

 with Mr. Hope's name in the title page, as the author. Now, if there 

 was any particular puff that could have ensured an immense curiosity 

 about the book, before it appeared, and its merciless damnation after- 

 wards, it was the very report here in question. Who really was the 

 author of Anastasius, was almost a doubtful matter. In despite of the 

 name plain and unequivocal in the dedication, people were not quite 

 satisfied that Mr. Hope was the man. Although, if he were not, the 

 problem was none the nearer solved ; for the same difficulties that hung 

 about his claim, would attach to that of any one else. It was hardly 

 conceivable that any man this was the objection to Mr. Hope should 

 have written the MOST STRIKING BOOK we cannot bate one point of this 

 estimate of supremacy that had been produced within living memory ; 

 a book which, as a work of fancy, seemed to combine the best powers 

 of all the best known writers, and yet never write again. But then the 

 difficulty was not got rid of by refusing the claims of Mr. Hope ; for 

 it was clear that somebody must have done this ; unless we put the cape 

 upon some known writer, choosing to masquerade in the back ground 

 which looking to the subject of the book, and its execution appeared 

 unlikely ; or assumed that it was the posthumous, MS. of some extraordi- 

 nary man, whose powers had remained undeveloped during his life, or who 

 had himself, perhaps, been unconscious of them. On the other hand, in 

 favour of Mr. Hope's claim independently of the unqualified manner in 

 which that claim is made and recorded although, frankly to speak, when 

 a gentleman does write one good copy of verses, or make one good speech 

 in Parliament, we are apt to have a misgiving that somebody else made or 

 wrote the matter for him ; yet it is an undoubted truth, and perfectly 

 well known to those who are conversant with the " business " of litera- 

 ture, that a fresh man does now and then execute some one or two 

 things excellently well; and can never do any thing worth a farthing after- 

 wards. There were difficulties in the question, however, beyond all these. 

 For instance, though men were known to have produced one good thing 

 and never accomplished a second, yet it was hard to find the case of any 

 man who had produced one good thing and never attempted a second. 

 Then for the probability that Mr. Hope had come by the MS. dans une 

 maniere inconnue why the dedication (of about fifty lines to Mrs. Hope) 

 was the only bit of rather clumsy writing in the book. Yet this was 

 met again, on the other hand, by the fact, that dedications, even by the very 

 best hands, are almost invariably artificial and clumsy : so that, like the 

 authorship of Gil Bias, and the identity of the Man with the Iron Mask, 

 and the name of the true thief in the case of the The Diamond Neck- 

 lace, the matter of the writing of Anastasius, where it had taken 

 speculators up, seemed likely, to the end of time, to set them down. 

 However, be the solution of the mystery what it might, it was quite 



* The Adventures of Hajji Baba in England, 2 vols. 12mp., Murray, London. 



M.M. New Scrics*-Voi.V. No. 30. 4 H 



